Segmentation of Indian shoppers in the context of organic foods

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to segment and profile the Indian shoppers in the context of organic foods in India. It proposes to use a healthy lifestyle (HL) as a segmenting variable and to use a factor-cluster analysis approach to achieve the same. The current study is expected to add a substantial base to the segmentation literature in marketing. Design/methodology/approach Food stores in Indian metropolitan city Chennai are sampled, and data is collected in the form of a mall intercept survey method. In total, 441 usable structured questionnaires are filled by the respondents which are subjected to suitable statistical analysis. Findings Three significantly different consumer segments emerged from the given sample of respondents, which shows uniqueness concerning consumer’s, HL features, demographics and the variables of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Research limitations/implications Clustering method used to segment the potential shoppers of organic foods is an exploratory technique only. It cannot be treated or generalized to the population like those of inferential techniques. The researcher suggested testing the same with a larger sample size and in a different context. It is limited to urban and suburban facets of the metropolitan city in India. Originality/value The study will be helpful to marketers and decision makers to target the potential organic foods consumers.