Exploring the relationship between growth in online shopping and multichannel food consumers

Abstract During the pandemic, many food retailers began offering online shopping options, primarily in reaction to rising consumer demand for such options, which was a response to supply chain disruptions and fear of contagion and food scarcity. Due to the unique attributes of online shopping, we hypothesize that for some consumers, increased utilization of online shopping may have influenced the number and types of selected food markets. We use latent class regression to analyze October 2023 survey data, finding that of consumers who have stronger food values, those who are now spending more of their budget on online shopping are more likely to shop at multiple types of food markets.