Ageing Society e comportamenti della distribuzione commerciale

Older shoppers are soon going to become the most important group of all consumers in terms of retail spend and of vital importance within the food marketplace. Despite this evidence, only recently retailers started to pay special attention to silver clients in order to accommodate their needs. This research aims at: (i) finding the main concerns and difficulties which the silver population faces when shopping; (ii) identifying the in store design solutions implemented in food retailing in order to reduce concerns and difficulties; (iii) testing the mediating role of concerns and difficulties in the relationship between nostalgia and usefulness of in store design solutions. Main results allow to state that concerns and difficulties in food retail shopping among the silver client can be grouped in four main areas: personal difficulties, sales personnel relationship, merchandise and store layout. Furthermore, the quantitative research allows to confirm the hypothesized mediation role and to state that health status and nostalgia are the two variables positively and significantly impacting on concerns and difficulties.