Understanding Consumer Reactions to Assortment Unavailability

1.3 The role of assortment in the supermarket choice process
The main streams of research on the effect of choice in both psychological and marketing
literature show that more choice generally has positive effects on motivation, satisfaction,
perceived control, perceived variety, and assortment attraction (e.g., Deci and Ryan 1985; Kahn
and Lehmann 1991; Langer 1983; Oppewal and Koelemeijer 2005). This idea has largely been
adopted by grocery retailers as they have gradually extended their assortments (Boatwright and
Nunes 2001). In countries such as the United Kingdom and France, more than 40% of total
grocery sales occur in superstores and hypermarkets. These retail formats often carry a range of
40,000–80,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs). In the Netherlands, superstores and hypermarkets
are less dominant, and regular supermarkets, with commercial floor spaces of 400–1,200 square
meters, account for more than 70% of total grocery sales. These supermarkets tend to carry fewer
items than superstores and hypermarkets. For example, most regular Albert Heijn supermarkets
offer an assortment that consists of about 20,000 SKUs, whereas stores of its competitors, like
C1000 and Super de Boer, offer on average 10,000 and 15,000 items, respectively.
The question thus emerges: Does an extended assortment attract more customers? We
specifically study the behavior of grocery shoppers. In the Netherlands, the consumers that are
primarily responsible for buying groceries for their households (hereafter, grocery shoppers) go
to a supermarket, on average, 2.6 times per week (EFMI and CBL 2005). Because of several
factors, such as the higher penetration of cars, a higher percentage of women with (paying) jobs,
and the decreasing number of supermarkets, the average number of store visits per week has
gradually decreased during the past decade. For example, in 1990, Dutch consumers went to the
supermarket on average 3.3. times per week (EFMI and CBL 2005).
In addition, most grocery shoppers are not loyal to only one supermarket. A total of 87%
of grocery shoppers use two or more different supermarkets for their grocery purchases. On
average, grocery shoppers visit 2.8 different supermarkets each month, which suggests that they
tend to spread their purchases among different stores (EFMI and CBL 2005). There might be
several reasons why consumers are not loyal to one store. For example, stores may differ in the
price level, promotional tactics, services, and assortment level they offer (Fox and Hoch 2005).
Specifically, with regard to the assortment they offer, supermarkets strongly differ. For example,
Aldi offers an average of only 800 items, whereas an Albert Heijn XL store offers 30,000 or
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