Enhancing the grocery shopping experience of customers aged 65 and above in the UK by using emerging technologies

Abstract

The number of older people is increasing more rapidly than other age groups worldwide. Older people are becoming wealthier and living longer, making them an attractive target for retailers. Grocery shopping plays a significant role in older people's lives, and they have multiple options to choose from in light of the UK's competitive grocery market, so to attract them, supermarkets must address current issues. The literature reviews highlighted the research gap and how emerging technologies can strategically enhance customer experience. This thesis followed User-Centred Design (UCD) and inclusive design approaches to provide design insights and recommendations that fill the research gap. This research explores how emerging technologies can be applied to enhance supermarket service for customers aged 65+ in the UK. It accomplished this by applying a mixed-methods and method triangulation approach that included a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), card sorting, and a questionnaire to discover the grocery experiences and the main pain points. This project recruited 20 participants for card sorting sessions with ages ranging between 65 and 84 years and received 213 valid responses to the questionnaire, aged 65 years and over. As a result, this research contributes to the existing knowledge of older customers' post-COVID grocery shopping behaviour by discovering changes in shopping frequency and the emergence of new shopping behaviour. Regarding older customers' experience and unmet needs, 'product availability and location' has been identified as the main pain point because the store is moving the products around. Based on the literature reviews, design insights and recommendations were made to incorporate Augmented Reality (AR) into existing supermarket apps or devices to guide customers inside the store. This study benefits supermarkets by indicating considerable areas for improving their retail services. It also helps researchers and policymakers in ageing-related fields who can leverage the research findings and methodologies for broader applicability and future research directions.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Fahad Ibrahim Alhathal: orcid.org/0000-0003-2478-1449

ORCID for Yuanyuan Yin: orcid.org/0000-0002-2109-0135

ORCID for Shan Wang: orcid.org/0000-0002-3530-6232

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