Why Consumers Go to Online Grocery: Comparing Vegetables with Grains

This study investigates factors affecting the adoption of online grocery shopping and online grocery purchase amount based on the theories of innovation classification scheme, food related lifestyle, and product heterogeneity. Using real purchase data from 732 consumer households, logit regression and linear regression with Box-Cox transformation were conducted to accomplish the goals of this study. This study found that the effect of convenience variables and food related lifestyle variables varies across the context (adoption vs. post-adoption) and product categories. Interestingly, the time requirement to access offline grocery markets, one of the convenience variables, had no effect on the adoption of online grocery shopping. However, it did affect the online grocery purchase amount. Theoretical and managerial implications are also derived from the findings of this study.