Consumers' perception towards delicatessen products

Today marketers of delicatessen products are confronted with rapidly changing markets driven by a permanently mutating business environment. The increasing delicatessen appetite of consumers is triggered by rising tourism and life- style changes leading to more differentiated consumer behaviour patterns. A market analysis on the German retail market revealed that concentration trends favouring multiples and discounters will continue and create the equivalent of a competitive battlefield. In this wave, the selfservice format reached a market share over 50% in recent years and is competing with the deli format on equal terms. On a European level, the EU Council is echoing the rising consumer trend in delicatessen consumption by policy regulations protecting delicatessen products on the basis of their place of origin or traditional methods of production. This implies that products like delicatessen reflecting local cultural heritage might contribute to the macro political strategy of the 'Europe of the Regions'. Effects on consumer behaviour are noticeable and call for innovative conceptualisations to integrate both, macro and micro environmental aspects and to differentiate consumers' perception of delicatessen products. The aim of this PhD thesis is to investigate and model the factors that affect consumers' perception of delicatessen products focusing on explaining the role of culture related factors in this context. The factors influencing consumers' perception towards delicatessen are a necessary pre-condition to derive effective marketing activities for this product group on an operational as well as strategic level and, hence, contribute to marketing knowledge and practice. Research applied in this study was centred on triangulation by conducting both, qualitative and quantitative research. The research was designed in three stages. In the first stage, a preliminary delicatessen perception model compromising a first set of potentially influencing factors was established based on a synthesis of a wide-ranging literature review. In the second stage, the initial conceptualisation of consumers' perception towards delicatessen has been validated and further developed by newly emerging perspectives by the means of qualitative research. As a research technique in-depth expert interviews have been conducted. In the third stage, a quantitative consumer survey on the German market place verified and further amended the initial model previously derived by literature review and qualitative research. The findings show that culture related factors have significant effects on consumers' perception towards delicatessen products, mediated by product and marketing factors. Furthermore, consumers' perceptions are related to the respective purchase situation, such as deli counter and self- service, and to consumers' favourite shopping places.. Beyond this new contribution to knowledge innovative marketing approaches are suggested to practitioners seeking to effectively address delicatessen consumers by adequate marketing activities.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo