Hur doftar tomaterna online? - A qualitative study on consumer decision making in different channels

Sammanfattning: The explosive development of digital technology has revolutionized all industries and markets over the last decade, which have had and will continue to have a significant effect on consumer purchasing behavior. By 2016, the grocery industry was one of the industries with the strongest e-commerce growth, which will be the market in focus in this study. Grocery retailers need full insight into how consumers' evaluation process and decision making are done, both in physical stores and in digital stores, to optimize their business. Hence, the scope of this study is to examine which factors that are crucial in consumer's decision-making process in physical store versus in digital store. The first chapters in this study describe the scientific approach and methods used throughout the paper. A qualitative research method has been chosen for this study, conducted through in-depth interviews and observations of a buying situation both in a physical store and online. Furthermore, the results from the primary data will be presented and then analyzed based on the study's analysis framework. The result revealed that sensory aspects have the greatest impact on consumer's decision making in the physical store. The senses in play online are limited to visual aspects, resulting in brand and previous experience being the most crucial aspects online. However, the importance of these attributes varied between different product categories. Furthermore, the respondents of this study generally showed a willingness to quickly end the purchase in the digital store, and primarily purchase goods that do not require any sensory information while evaluating.