Affluence has also played an important role in the radical change of the consumer market. A precise example of that would be higher consumers cost. Consumers nowadays have to spend more to be able to obtain high quality food or goods. Some consumers are willing to pay high price in order to get the quality. This in turn has impacted the consumer market and because of that, retailers have special area or shelves in their stores dedicated to high quality good, they are mostly named finest range. Tesco or Morrison’s for example have these finest ranges where people with more spending power and who have a taste in good quality food.
Affluence has also increased because in modern days, people have more money to spend on the food of their choice and the food they need e.g. diet food. Based on that, retailers have widened the range of type of food they offer.
How have retailers had to adapt
Cultural expectation
Cultural expectation refers to the fact that people from different cultures i.e. (different countries) here in the UK are requesting the types of food from their culture, this is mostly caused by immigration. Also we have people from in the UK visiting other countries and bringing the cultures from these countries back to the UK where it becomes a demand. For example, sushi which has become a very popular food in the UK is actually a cultural food from Japan. Curries are another type of cultural food that has taken the UK by storm and are in high demands as take away food.
Cultural changes was one of the biggest changes to hit the consumers market and to adapt to this change, retailers had to provide cultural food from other countries to make sure that their customers were satisfied. For example, stores like Morrison found themselves selling food from countries around the world and entire ranges dedicated to European food for example. There was also the arrival of Chinese, Indian and others take-away food from many food retailers.
Lifestyle expectation
Lifestyle food which has also seen its impacts on the consumer market has forced retailers to stock and sell more of fresh food and dietary food because of the consumers’ demands and expectations. This is because consumers have become very aware of the type of food they consume and many consumers are becoming very concerned of where the fresh food they purchase comes from. Most retail stores have now vast ranges of food all dedicated to fresh and dietary food. In fact most food sold in superstores or any other retail stores will most likely be fresh food. Because of this phenomenon, farmers’ shops have multiplied a lot during the recent years. Some consumers now rather buy their product directly from these farm shops then going to their usual supermarkets. This is what drove most retailers to increase the amount of fresh food and dietary food in their stores to make sure they satisfy the needs of the consumers and to adapt to these changes.
Due to this, consumers working patterns has also changed they can now do their shopping at any time they wish to, they don’t have to schedule it to go at a certain time. Consumers will have a more relaxed timetable.
Two or more cars household
Having a car enables consumers to move more, the more they you can move with your car the more access you have to various and diverse food. With a car, customers can go wherever they want to obtain the food they fancy no matter how far it is. Also having a car enables the shoppers/consumers to buy more food and products since they have more space in their cars. Retailers also had to adapt to this change and to do so; they had to offer more parking spaces to customers for their cars. Giving more space to customers attracts shoppers since most people now do their shopping with their cars.
Increased mobility
With all the changes came also increased mobility which is the ability to move freely wherever one wants. This refers the fact of introducing a new cultural type of food from different countries. For example, people from Asia or Africa will bring their types of food preference and according to these; food retailers will start producing this kind of food. The UK food retail market have been influenced by this increased mobility food and is still continuing to do so. Nowadays in the UK, we have many types of that are originally from other countries such as India, Pakistan etc...
Retailers had to start to sell varied types of food from these countries to make sure they keep up to date with the consumer market of today and its changes. This move is really important or even essential for retailers who wants to be successful in their business
Retailers also had to adapt to the change in the industry about the ways they sold their food because of attitudes to environmental issues. Retailers had to evaluate the recipients and food containers they used to sell their because of the effect it has on the environment. People have increasingly become aware of the types of containers or even wrappers that have been used to preserve the food they consume.
Climate change levies
Climate change levies is a sort of tax that retailers have to pay in order to import food to the UK from other countries, because by bringing food here to the UK, planes or boats that are used for the transport of goods emit CO2 in our atmosphere and pollute the air.
Also production of most products nowadays involves pollution, from good packaging to the actual food we consume and so in order to change that retailers are encouraged to produce without creation too much pollution.
To do so, retailers are reducing the amount of plastic they are using for packaging to a significant amount making sure the production of plastics is reduced. Easily degradable are being used more by retailers also because it is more safe for the environment because it spends less time around compare to other plastics. Retailers offer “green” bags nowadays which are recycled bags that helps reduce the amount of wasted recycled bags. This really does help reduce the amount of waste and prevent the production of more plastics
Retailers who import food from other countries using transports contribute to the pollution of our environment. Since all this increases environmental damages within the country, the government decided to charge retailers who import goods from other countries, so for type of goods that enters the UK, retailers will be taxed a certain amount of money.
Sustainable products
Sustainable is basically products that are at risks of disappearance or extinction. An example of this is salmon fish. In order to preserve this specific species, fishermen have come up with a way of keeping them alive in a sustainable way. This was done so that we, the customers never run out salmon.
Due to this, consumers like to buy these sustainable products in order to keep them around for long enough. Because of the way sustainable products are preserved and the amount of money that goes into the equipment needed for the process, the sustainable products themselves are expensive.
Technology
With all the radical changes, there were also the inventions of new like technology. Some of these technologies includes bar coding, scanning, loyalty cards. All these new technologies have come to reshape the some aspects of the consumer market. Scanning machines were invented in the 1950s and was introduced to the consumer market, from then it has always been used to facilitate the purchase of almost every product from food to electrical. In the modern days, we have bar scanning machines in big supermarkets where customers can directly scan and buy their products without having to wait in big long queues to check out.
Bar coding was one of the technologies that have been invented for the benefits of the consumer market and the customers. All products or food have a special number code that helps tracking them, facilitate their purchase and provides all the information about the products.
Loyalty card is another new invention that affected the consumer market, these cards are offered to the most loyal customers in exchange of their faithfulness to the business or simply as a reward for being honest and loyal to the business. Retailers have had to adapt to this change by offering loyalty card to their customers who haven’t proven any kind of loyalty and in some cases it is used to attract new customers
Customer services
As part of the radical change in the consumer market, retailer shops offer more staff and quality services. These are the things that attract more consumers because it means quality services. More and more retailers have imitate this technique to make sure they offer better customer services, some stores even have staff especially to welcome customers and make sure they more feel comfortable walking around.
These staff help make shopping trips easy and enjoyable sometime for consumers because if you go shopping in a market and find it easy to locate every item on your list with clear and easily readable price tags you are more likely to go there every time you need to shop.
Seasonal changes
This refers to the type of food that consumers like to have during certain periods of the year. Seasonal changes continue to have a big effect on the consumer market like it always has.
For example, in the summer, people like to purchase meat products to make barbecues and picnics outside just to enjoy the good weather. There are also celebration foods which people like to buy in order to have a complete celebration. Christmas for example, is the time where people consume a lot of Turkey meat and Satsuma. Some people feel like without these products, Christmas wouldn’t be complete and for others it is just a tradition.
Halloween is the season for pumpkins, and at that time of the year, the consummation of pumpkins rises. Retailers have had to this by offering more seasonal products at the right at convenient times of the year. Most retailer even offer deals on seasonal product at the right time of the year