Av gammal vana : En kvalitativ studie om varför svenskar inte e-handlar livsmedel i större utsträckning

Sammanfattning: The food industry is one of the fastest growing industries in Swedish e-commerce today. However, e-commerce still represents a very small part of the total food sales in Sweden. Experts have noted that, in order for e-commerce to expand in this field, Internet food sales must increase. The aim of this study is to form an understanding of why Swedes do not purchase more food products online. The theoretical framework consists of various marketing theories concerning consumer behavior and the acceptance of new innovations. The methodology used for the purpose of this study has a qualitative approach and in order to answer the questions at hand two focus groups were assembled. The first group of respondents consists of young adults aged 22-29 years old and the second group consists of parents with children living at home. This categorization is motivated firstly by the fact that the group of young adults have had access to the Internet from a very early age, thus affecting the way they relate to and use it. Secondly the group of parents with children living at home was chosen because they belong to the category of consumers with the greatest online purchasing power. The focus groups were analyzed separately and by applying a comparative analysis some similarities and differences were addressed. The results of this study indicate that Swedes do not purchase food products online because of three main reasons. First there is poor knowledge of how e-commerce of food products online works, which makes consumers skeptical. Secondly consumers want to survey the perishable products, which the Internet cannot offer. Finally grocery shopping is a habitual behavior which is difficult to change. In addition, the results showed that parents with children living at home belong to the group of consumers that is more likely to embrace e-commerce related to the food industry.