Measuring Customer Experience in the Italian retail grocery sector

Abstract

The diffusion of new digital technologies is changing the consumer and his needs, he is becoming far more informed and demanding with strong implications for players in every sector who needs to adapt and keep up the pace of change in order to survive.

The retail food industry is a highly competitive and challenging industry that has been experiencing significant change. We are currently entering the so-called fourth Era of Retail, which is appointed as the “Omnichannel retailing”, and will be characterised by the predominant and central role of technology. In fact, digital innovations represent on one side a terrible threat since new online retailers are entering the market and challenging traditional brick and mortar retailers, but on the other side, it can represent a tremendous benefit. Digital gives the opportunity to innovate and enhance the consumer experience both inside and outside the point of sale.

Shops and store experience, despite new trends, remain a key tool for getting in touch with the consumer and especially in Italy it is considered still important the possibility to touch and feel the product before buying it as well as the interaction with shop assistants. Anyway, a redesign is needed to cope with today's context and with the competition of new e-retailer like Amazon. This thesis aims to analyze the evolution of retail in the current digital context, considering different topics: from new tools to facilitate purchasing processes such as smartphones, to omnichannel strategy as an approach that pushes retailers to use different sales channels to allow the end customer a perfect personalized and seamless experience, up to the analysis of customer experience considering the current context where consumers exploit physical and digital touchpoints to enhance their buying journey.

This thesis wants to focus especially on the grocery retail sector in Italy, analyzing the major players of this market and comparing the level of customer experience provided. A set of parameters will be selected and measured, connected to the performance and features of both the digital channels and the physical stores. The thesis aims to provide a classification of the major retail players based on the degree of customer experience provided, as well as some reflections on how the retail sector will evolve and how firms should adapt.