The study of the impacts of the electronic shelf labels featuring a wine rating on the consumers in grocery stores.

Details

Supervisors

Poncin, Ingrid

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Technologies are on the rise. The retailing world has embraced the move by offering to their customers smart technologies that reshape their shopping activity. These tools are called smart retailing technologies and can take many different shapes. This research will study the case of the electronic shelf labels (ESLs) that are gradually substituting the regular shelf labels. Our work will focus on the impact of ESLs embedded with a product rating on the consumers. Moreover, we will consider the case of a wine rating. Hence our following research question: “What are the impacts of an electronic shelf label featuring a wine rating on the consumers in the grocery stores?”. Furthermore, we will consider the effect of two product rating variables: the source and the score. Our conceptual framework will examine the influence of these two variables on the customer view of the rating credibility, usage, perceived quality of the wine, and his wine purchase intention. We will also study the effects of the usage of the rating on the retailer loyalty. This work will start with the exploratory research that includes the literature review and the qualitative interviews. The literature review will be the mean to be familiar with the relevant concepts of the topic. The interviews will allow us to gain insights on the topic from the consumers point of view. After that, we will build a total of 17 hypotheses. Following this phase, we will collect data through an online experiment based on a questionnaire that will be built with 4 potential scenarios. We will then test the hypotheses with statistical analysis which will lead us to the results of our work. We will finish the work by expressing limits and further research of our study as well as the managerial recommendations. In conclusion of this study, we can say that the rating score has a major impact on the consumers as it positively influences both the customer perceived quality of the wine and his purchase intention. While neither of the rating source or the rating score affect the rating credibility, we observed a positive influence of the wine rating credibility on its usage. Eventually, the usage of the wine rating improves the loyalty to the retailer for both wine shopping and general shopping.