Abstract
This article studies the impact of shopping at the warehouse club format on households' purchases of packaged food for the home. In addition to low prices, this format has several unique characteristics that can influence packaged food purchases. The empirical analysis uses a combination of households' longitudinal grocery purchase information, rich survey data, and detailed item-level nutrition information. After accounting for selection on observables and unobservables, the authors find a substantial increase in the total quantity (servings per capita) of packaged food purchases attributable to shopping at this format. Because there is no effect on the nutritional quality of purchases, this translates into a substantial increase in calories, sugar, and saturated fat per capita. The increase comes primarily from storable and impulse foods, and it is drawn equally from foods that have positive and negative health halos. The results have important implications for how marketers can create win-win opportunities for themselves and for consumers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 193-207 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Journal of Marketing Research |
Volume | 55 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 1 Jan 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2018 |
Funding
*Kusum L. Ailawadi is Charles Jordan 1911 TU'12 Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College (email: kusum.ailawadi@ dartmouth.edu). Yu Ma is Associate Professor of Marketing and Bensadoun Scholar, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University (email: yu. [email protected]). Dhruv Grewal is Toyota Chair of Commerce and Electronic Business and Professor of Marketing, Babson College (email: dgrewal@ babson.edu). The authors thank SymphonyIRI for providing the panel and survey data used in this research. They thank Minha Hwang for sharing warehouse club store opening data. They also thank seminar participants at several universities, especially KU Leuven, Southern Methodist University, IDC Herzeliya, McGill University, University of Miami, Rice University, Syracuse University, and University of Hamburg, for their helpful suggestions. The second author was supported by grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Marnik Dekimpe served as associate editor for this article.
Keywords
- Nutrition
- Packaged food purchases
- Public health
- Selection on observables and unobservables
- Warehouse club format
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management
- Economics and Econometrics
- Marketing