Identification of Factors Affecting the Retailers’ Decision Making in Independent Grocery Stores of Iran: A Qualitative Study

This study is conducted to identify the factors affecting the process of decision-making of grocery stores and supermarket owners about buying products. This study was conducted by using deep, semi-structured interviews with ۲۵ marketers and ۲۰ independent shop owners, selling food products, in Mashhad. The text of the qualitative interviews is encoded by two coders and in case of any difference between the codes, a third coder will call the final comment. After the initial coding, categorization is done and the codes are categorized into more brief concepts. The outcome of this study showed that the ۵ basic factors including brand, marketer characteristics, financial features, after-sale services, and consumer needs affect the decision-making of independent shop and grocery store owners about buying products. It is obvious that paying close attention to these factors by the producers will make the shop owners allocate more space to their products, something that can bring them a bigger share of the market

Keywords:

brand , marketer characteristics , shelf management , retailer , grocery stores