A Mixed-method Examination of Reported Benefits of Online Grocery Shopping in the United States and Germany: Is Health a Factor?

The growth in online grocery shopping has prompted research into why consumers are shifting food acquisition practices. Most research has relied on either confirmatory approaches (i.e., multiple choice surveys) that limit consumer input or ethnographic approaches that provide more in-depth understanding of consumer experience but are limited to a handful of participants. The present study fills a gap in the existing literature by using open-ended responses from many participants to derive and quantify consumer motivations and benefits of online grocery shopping. Data about online grocery shopping was collected in the United States and Germany from participants who were 18 years of age or older and the primary household food shopper. A qualitatively driven, mixed-methods approach using a bottom-up, content analysis methodology with emergent coding resulted in over 1,000 open-ended responses provided by almost 400 individuals. Data synthesis yielded 51 separate benefits that clustered into eight motivation categories. Findings demonstrate that consumers are grocery shopping online for an array of reasons, ranging from economizing to expressing aspects of their social identity. The benefits that were most often mentioned are functional, utilitarian needs such as saving of money and time, or the increased availability and accessibility of products.