The purpose of this study is to provide a longitudinal examination, within Grocery retailing, of four marketing tools and their impact on enhancing customer loyalty. The study examines whether the relationship between the four marketing tools and customer satisfaction has a positive effect on attitude and behavior loyalty. The findings from this study show that the marketing tools have not helped enhancing loyalty between 2004 and 2007. Between these years, service quality has the most affect on loyalty. Self-scanning as an effective marketing tool could be questioned, the relation in this study is not supported.

Structural changes on the grocery market usually take place when the consumer is persuaded to take on the more labourintense parts of the distributionprocess. Internettrade changes this by causing competition between the unpaid work done by consumers and the labor performed by employees. In this master thesis grocery shopping on the internet is analyzed in a economic perspective with focus on distribution, changing marketstructures, driving forces and the future potential of internet as a saleschannel. The main conclusions are that consumerdemand and the belief in electronic commerceas a costreducing mechanism as well as a powerful new marketing tool were the driving forces behind the fast growth of grocery shopping on the internet. Electronic commerce introduces a new model of distribution with changing roles for consumers and grocerychains.

The purpose of this master thesis is to understand how busy moms experience their grocery shopping trips and the in-store environment. In gaining this knowledge, we aim at being able to suggest ways to improve the grocery shopping experience of busy moms; and present insights that can help food retailers in targeting this consumer group in-store. Methodology: We use an iterative approach, and work with photo elicitation interviews. We let our respondents capture their experiences in photographs, which then aid in recalling their memories in follow up interviews. Theoretical perspective: We base our theoretical perspective on environmental psychology where we use the original M-R model, and include personal and situational variables suggested by Bäckström and Johansson (2006); where the latter variable includes the views by Turley and Milliman (2000).

Through interaction with customers, companies can acquire knowledge about- and satisfy the needs of customers. In retailing, the ranges of products are standardized and staffing numbers are scarce. How do companies in retailing deal with adaptation towards their customers given the small staffing numbers? The purpose of this study is to examine if and if so, how companies in the Swedish retailing industry are making adaptations towards their customers and also why these adaptations are being made. To answer this purpose, observations in the retailing industry are conducted and the results show that companies adapt to customers? needs.

The retail industry is complex and when it comes to the in-store environment conventional marketing tools seldom find their way. The impacts of in-store atmospherics on customers and the psychological impact the store environment has on their decision-making are rather remarkable. An in-store atmospheric that often is used in order to affect customers is music, in fact it is one of the in-store elements that has been investigated more carefully. Nevertheless, in spite several studies on music and its impact as an in-store atmospheric on customers, it is not yet obvious what applies. To bring some clarity on the subject this study is aspiring to explain what applies when it comes to playing music in grocery stores.

The four grocery chains Axfood, Bergendahls, Coop and ICA, all providing private labels, dominate the Swedish grocery market. Through private labels, it may be possible to convey an image about the grocery chain's overall brand. Furthermore, it is important that the grocery chain's employees have a fairly consistent understanding regarding the company's image to achieve success.The main purpose of this study is to examine how the intended image the Swedish grocery chains head offices will communicate through private labels is perceived among the store employees. The study intends to provide an expanded view among the grocery chains' work on internal communications regarding the image of private labels. The research method is qualitative.

Information technology development has in recent decades had a major impact on retailing.Discount supermarket chains began to offer customers the possibility to shop without therequirement to do this over the counter, instead the customer could help themselves buyingthe products they wanted. Retailing today has an even greater focus on the self service in thesupermarkets, recently many retailing chains has introduced self-checkout systems toincrease the profits and reduce staffing requirements. In the 1960?s the start for today's ecommercewas founded, however the development took off 30 years later in the beginning of1990. During the first years of 2000 the consumption on the Internet increased rapidly.

Interactive media is constantly increasing in our surroundings and with the innovation of touch-screens, two-way communication with screens has become part of our daily life. Still, this well known way of process information is not often seen in the in-store environment of Grocery retailing. Here, interactive media is an unestablished field where empirical studies are invisible within the academic world. The lack of knowledge in which effect interactive digital signage has is one of the barriers of investing in this marketing solution in-store. The main purpose of this study is to examine and describe the effects of interactive digital signage at shelf within Grocery retailing.

The out-of-town retail establishments are part of the dramatic structural changes in the retailing of food and groceries. There are however strong indications suggesting these establishments result in negative externalities concerning areas such as pollution and urban environment. The purpose of this study is to describe and, from an economic perspective, analyse the Swedish political regulations and planning policies concerning the out-of-town supermarkets. The analysis establishes that the current regulations regarding out-of-town retailing do not, due to the occurrence of market failures, produce an optimal situation. It might therefore be necessary to change the planning policies in a more restrictive direction.

The purpose of this thesis is to give an understanding of how grocery stores relate to local foods. Through a case study representatives for two groceries in Norrbotten have been interviewed regarding why they supply local foods, how they try to influence customers to buy this, and how they decide upon the assortment of local foods. The result shows that groceries supply local foods in order to supply a wide range of products and to mediate social responsibility, in order to create customer loyalty. Concerning how the groceries try to influence customers to buy local foods the result cannot give any clear-cut view. Instead it shows that a grocery that actively works to influence customers to buy local foods markets them in specific ways, while the opposite applies to a grocery that does not actively work for this.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to determine how a technolo-gically enhanced shopping tool, synergizing eCRM tech-niques with personalized promotion at the point-of-sale, can increase customer loyalty by considering perceptions of current grocery retailer loyalty programs in Sweden. Methodology: An exploratory research was undertaken in the light of a qualitative method collecting primary data through focus group interviews. Theoretical perspective: The major considerations regarding theoretical aspects, for this thesis, can be addressed by Behavioral/Attitudinal loyalty and Relevance of Promotion. Empirical data: The empirical data, in regards to primary data, was ga-thered based on four focus group interviews. Conclusion: The conclusions of the thesis imply, that in order to make a loyalty program successful, it needs to firstly be conven-ient for the customer; easy to join, and provide an easy and time efficient display at the point-of-sale.

Almost all people in Sweden have to visit a grocery store at some point, which are facing plenty of different kind of hygiene risks. They will face both employees and other customer - all of them are possible to give the innocent customer some kind of infection. Does the shopkeeper know this Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, there's a lot of work to do for a shopkeeper who wants to understand his customers. The shopkeeper needs to understand how to decrease the customers' risk perception, as well as how risk and media fits together.

Food waste from grocery stores - An analysis of municipal management inSweden and a detailed study of the situation in Umeå municipalityThe objective of this thesis was to analyze the municipal management of food waste fromgrocery stores in Sweden in general and in Umeå municipality in particular. Furthermore theobjective was to account for the different waste treatment methods that can be used and toevaluate them from an environmental perspective. In order to analyze the municipalmanagement a survey was sent to all of the municipalities/municipal waste companies inSweden. A general comparison of treatment methods was carried out on the basis of ascientific review and a system analysis was performed in order to compare three differenttreatment alternatives for the food waste generated in grocery stores in Umeå. The surveyshowed that the legal definition of food waste from grocery stores is unclear and variesbetween municipalities.

Background: It has been shown that companies that lived under protected conditions for a long time have had difficulties to adapt to major changes. With that in mind an even more extensive low-cost competition in the Swedish grocery market will make a threat for the traditional grocery stores' long-term survival. The question then becomes, which strategies will be successful and lead to higher customer loyalty.Problem: Are the traditional grocery stores using strategies that can compete in addition to pricing and will those strategies lead to long-term survival?Objective: Is to analyse and evaluate two traditional grocery stores' strategies and to examine whether these are consistent with customer demand.Approach: First we have created a more fundamental understanding of the situation in the Swedish grocery market. Then we have implemented two interviews in each grocery store.

Title: Culture?s Affect on the Determinants of Customer Satisfaction in Retailing: The Case of a European Retailer in the U.S. and China Date of the Seminar: 29th of May 2007 Course: BUS 809 Master thesis in International Marketing Authors: Lisa Bustamante Chesley Norman Charlotte Valind Advisors: Johan Anselmsson Cecilia Cassinger Keywords: International Retailing, Determinants of Customer Satisfaction, Culture, United States, China Thesis purpose: Our study aims to identify the determinants of customer satisfaction of two national cultures in a global retail setting, in order to clarify what role culture has, if any, in customers? satisfaction with an international retailer. Further, this will uncover if a Western perspective of determinants of satisfaction is a universal means of capturing what satisfies customers across cultures in a retail setting.