Choice modeling of grocery shopping behavior: A Sri Lankan case study

Different retail forms play an integral part in the urban landscape in Sri Lankan cities shaping its spatial form. In planning new and different grocery retail forms, the main considerations are usually location, distance to population catchments and income levels. But distance-based descriptive methods are incapable of predicting the actual shopping behavior of grocery shoppers due to unrealistic assumptions that, for instance, shoppers will select the closest facility. Therefore, this study for the first time attempts to apply a behavioral model to determine the key drivers behind the store choice decision of grocery shoppers in a Sri Lankan city. A conceptual framework of individual choice behavior is adopted based on random utility theory and involves the application of a choice experiment. The analysis is based on a sample of 350 respondents representing households within the Piliyandala town area - a suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The major findings are that, rather than distance being a primary influence on where people shop, attributes of retail destination such as quality of the products, price of the products and variety of goods available are more significant when maximizing utility. Thus, even though, supermarkets are typically perceived as the grocery retail form that maximizes utility, traditional grocery stores still continue to be a still popular icon of the retail landscape. This study, therefore, provides a study of how traditional grocery stores and modern supermarkets co-exist in suburbs of a major city in a developing country such as Sri Lanka. Further it broadens the understanding of grocery shopping behavior thereby facilitating the planning and design involved in commercial land uses related to grocery shopping. This is important given planners have been shown to be slow and conventional in responding to rapid changes in suburban form and function. Our findings can assist urban policy makers to reevaluate the retail policy framework in suburbs of Sri Lankan cities and therefore contribute to the facilitation of greater social and economic vibrancy in traditional economies.