Factors That Influence Grocery Sales in Northeastern Florida

Decreasing grocery sales have had a serious effect on grocery store owners, employees, customers, and communities throughout the United States. Lacking knowledge of changing customer service policies can be devastating to grocery store owners. Grocery store owners were not able to change customer service policies because they had insufficient knowledge of the factors contributing to the decline in grocery sales. The specific business problem was the lack of knowledge by grocery store owners in northeastern Florida about the factors causing a decrease in grocery sales. Building on the conceptual framework of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, this phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of 28 grocery customers through face-to-face interviews regarding the factors contributing to the decrease in grocery sales in northeastern Florida. Understanding the customers' perspectives could help grocery store owners to change their customer service policies to increase sales and improve sustainability. Using Hycner's explicitation process, 5 themes emerged from the coded data, which included recommendations for grocery store owners to rebuild their service policies. The 5 emergent themes were customer satisfaction, customer value, customer loyalty, factors impacting sales, and ways to improve customer service. The results of the study might contribute to positive social change by generating knowledge about the factors affecting grocery sales for grocery store owners and stakeholders to increase grocery sales, jobs, tax revenues, and the community's wealth and health.