Quantifying barriers impeding the diffusion of supermarkets in China: The role of shopping habits

•We explore the role of shopping habits on the diffusion of supermarkets.•We compare the relative importance of shopping habits with other factors.•We use survey data in China's second-tier markets.•We found that socioeconomic factors have minimal impact on consumers' retail format choice.•We found that shopping habits have as great or even larger impact as other factors.

The present study contributes to the literature on supermarket diffusion by incorporating shopping habit factors, beyond socioeconomic factors and store characteristic factors, into a framework for predicting consumers' choice to shop in traditional versus modern retail formats. Further, this study aims to estimate the relative importance of these variables compared to other factors. Our results show that socioeconomic factors have minimal impact on consumer choice. Shopping habit factors have as great or even larger impact as market-relevant and product-relevant attributes, especially for fresh-food and cooked-food shopping.