Retirees: How do they Choose their Grocery Store? How do They Shop?

This paper presents partial results of research based on consumer preferences when shopping for food. It is focused on retirees, their ways of choosing suitable grocery store for them and on their purchases as well. The main objective of this paper is to determine how these consumers are influenced by various factors before, during, and after the purchase and how these facts are reflected in their future decisions about store choice. The next objectives are to compare their behavior to other segments of consumers in Czech Republic, determine which segments are influenced by various factors and compare these influences to the other segments and describe these variations. Define which parameters are crucial for older consumer when choosing his grocery store.The results are based on questionnaire survey conducted within the period from 2011 to 2013 on a sample of 4835 respondents from the Czech Republic, via online questionnaires. For the data collection the questionnaire system ReLa, developed by the Department of Marketing and Trade at Faculty of Business and Economics at Mendel University in Brno, was used. Data was processed with statistical software STATISTICA (ver. 10). Additional data were gained from a survey of the income situation of households and their living conditions – project EU-SILC (European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) – using a unified EU methodology. The results show that retired consumers have substantially different patterns of behaviour on food market in Czech Republic than segments in younger age groups.