Food e-commerce and the subscription box model: an exploratory survey on a sample of Italian consumers

Abstract

For quite some time now, the retail landscape has been evolving at a rather fast pace due to transformations brought about by technological innovations, as well as in business models, which reflect changes in consumers' purchasing and consumption behaviors. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many paradigms, thereby changing the way people live, buy and consume food. Some industries have undoubtedly been penalized, whereas others have proved to be protagonists of unprecedented growth, such as e-commerce, notably in the food industry. This thesis aims at exploring the development and diffusion of food subscription boxes in Italy. This trend, coupled with the boom of food e-commerce, has experienced a rapid acceleration in the last few years, partly due to the pandemic. Starting from a first introductory chapter on digital transformation and on the level of digitalization of Italian firms in the pre- and post-pandemic scenario, an overview of e-commerce in general will be presented, including the different typologies, its main features, in order to then focus on the state of the art in the Italian country. On the other hand, the third chapter delves into online food shopping by looking in detail at the various types of food e-commerce in Italy and how they have seen exponential growth during lockdown periods and beyond. In the fourth chapter, the emphasis is placed on the core topic of the thesis, namely subscription boxes, with an insight into those related to food products. The last part of the dissertation, finally, deals with an empirical survey to examine the degree of knowledge of food subscription boxes in Italy, as well as to identify the motivations that could drive the adoption of these subscription services. Specifically, this is an exploratory study centered on data collected through a questionnaire which was designed and adapted on the basis of existing literature and submitted to a sample of Italian consumers aged 18 and over.