Packaging-free products: A lever of proximity and loyalty between consumers and grocery stores

Didier Louis (), Cindy Lombart and Fabien Durif
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Didier Louis: IUT Saint-Nazaire - Institut Universitaire de Technologie Saint-Nazaire - UN - Université de Nantes, LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes
Cindy Lombart: Audencia Recherche - Audencia Business School
Fabien Durif: UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal

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Abstract: This research investigates the consequences for retailers and their stores of a new sustainable consumption trend—the purchase and consumption of bulk products. It examines the effects of offering packaging-free products on three subdimensions of perceived proximity (identity, process, and relational) and on transactional loyalty (satisfaction–loyalty) and relational loyalty (satisfaction–trust–loyalty). A total of 1407 buyers and consumers of bulk products at a convenience store (of a university cooperative style) filled out an online questionnaire. These consumers were then divided into three subgroups (convinced, pragmatic, and wary). This research empirically establishes that unpacked products are a strategic tool for retailers and their stores to create or strengthen the relationships established with their customers. Unpacked products and the proximity they create between a consumer and a store are the first link in the development or preservation of a relational chain between the consumer and the store. Moreover, the step reached by the consumer in his process of purchasing and consuming packaging-free products (from the discovery stage to the already well-established habit) has a direct impact on the relational chain built.

Keywords: Food waste; Plastic waste; Packaging-free products; Proximity; Satisfaction; Trust; Loyalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-05
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://audencia.hal.science/hal-03379616
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Journal of retailing and consumer services, 2021, 60, pp.102499. ⟨10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102499⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03379616

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102499

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