It’s a great question that is certainly on the minds of retailers across North America. In these tough times, it’s important to remain focused on adjusting strategies to adopt to the market conditions of today and tomorrow. While we know that consumers significantly change their shopping habits in the face of the current economic conditions, we also know that consumers are likely to continue a number of grocery store habits that they adopted during this faltering economy over the long-term. Precima just partnered with ICOM Information & Communications on a research study to understand the long-term impact on shoppers’ behavior in an economic downturn. A few interesting findings include:

• 82% of U.S. consumers said they intend to continue cooking at home instead of eating out
• 80% plan to keep using coupons as much as possible
• 78% will continue to make fewer trips to the store to save on gas

Given that many of these consumer trends are here to stay, it is imperative for retailers to develop customized strategies to respond to changing consumer needs. Some of the most interesting results from the survey dealt with which habits consumers are less likely to continue when the economy improves:

• only 54% of U.S. consumers intend to keep buying generic or store brands
• 44% will continue to switch from favored brands to value brands

The most fascinating part of the study was the fact that we were able to determine that not many consumers (only 32%) had actually switched from their favorite brands to value brands to save money. This is where grocers can make the most impact on market share by understanding which brands are most important to consumers and why. If grocers can understand this behavior, they will have a significant advantage over their competitors.

I hope that helped to answer your question. I should also mention that Precima will be partnering with ICOM to provide an additional in-depth analysis of the latest shopping trends in a free webinar: Frugal America: How Retailers Can Take Advantage of the Slumping Economy’s Lasting Impact on American Shopping Behavior. The webinar will take place on October 1, 2008 at 1:00 PM EST. For more information, please visit: http://www.precima.com/webinar_registration.html