In order to truly discover how shopper behaviour has changed in India, as shoppers move from bargaining at mom-and-pop stores to seeking a bargain at hypermarkets, India needed a robust study that had academic rigour, shopper research, analytics and practical application in equal measure.

To do this, the country’s top-ranked business management school - the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), TNS, KiE Square and OgilvyAction came together as equal partners.

As per the insights generated from Store Trek, an analytics tool developed as part of this study:

• One in two shoppers is a man; one in two shoppers is accompanied
• Women who shop with their spouse spend 30-35% more than when they shop alone
• On an average, shoppers spend 2-4 minutes in each category
• Men who accompany their spouses read the most
• People, who shop alone, browse the most and buy the least; women who shop with their spouse browse the least and buy the most
• Affluent men with elastic wallets buy a lot on impulse
• Categories are bought by impulse

Over the last few months, two hypermarkets were picked for research, one at each end of the value spectrum, across three urban cities - Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Nine categories across food and personal care: chocolates, chips, carbonated soft drinks, health food drinks, breakfast cereals, hair care, oral care, soaps were identified for research. The sample included over 6,000 shoppers, 3,300 buyers and 2,700 exit interviews. In addition to this, over 450hours of video footage was also collected.

Dr. Kamaljit Anand, MD of KiE Square in India, said, “Shopper behaviour is changing at a steep pace in India. Newer store formats especially big box modern formats and online shops are driving this change. While the latter make shoppers more adventurous and risk agnostic, the former one is a more engaging story with high stimulus environment for shoppers. Every Aisle in the modern retail store has different dynamics and Store Trek is an attempt to capture those at the minutest level and draw implications for the marketers as well as the retailers. To be on top of this change, retailers and consumer packaged goods companies will have to make easy to apply tools like Store Trek, an integral part of their Shopper Marketing Toolkit.”