A new study has highlighted the importance of customer satisfaction in influencing supermarket retailers to adopt healthier food retail strategies.
These findings were outlined in a newly published study that aimed to understand how retailers balance different business outcomes, such as net profit, healthy items sold, and ease of implementation, when deciding whether to implement strategies that helped customers purchase healthier items.
To achieve this, 61 current and former supermarket owners and managers across Australia participated in a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE), evaluating hypothetical scenarios and revealing the trade-offs they were willing to make.
Customer satisfaction emerged as the top outcome, with retailers willing to invest up to A$32,136 annually for strategies that achieve “very satisfied” customers compared to a base level. This ranked higher than other factors like supplier satisfaction, net profit, and ease of implementation.
The study suggests that incorporating retailer preferences into future cost-benefit analyses will help design and implement more effective health-promotion strategies, benefiting retailers, consumers, and public health.
Read the journal article on the study HERE, titled ‘How supermarket retailers value business outcomes of healthy food retail strategies: a discrete choice experiment.’
