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The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative framework that will assist in understanding the adoption of digital food shopping. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated the demand for digital shopping, but the adoption of digital shopping for food has not accelerated as fast as in other product categories. This study considered the role of socio-cultural factors to understand the reason for slow adoption of digital technology to access food. A cultural framework that can be used to investigate socio-cultural factors in this context was lacking, however, this paper provides a discussion of social and cultural factors and developed measurement scales to assist in understanding cultural change acceptance in consumers' adoption of digital technology to purchase food.

Using Hayes' process analysis, this paper investigated how cultural acceptance – mediated by consumer affection and appeal and measuring the moderated effects of digital trust (DT) – determined the eventual impact on consumer intention to adopt digital food retailing. This paper also considered moderated mediation with parallel mediations (consumer affection and appeal, digital convenience (DC) and consumer digital readiness) interacting with DT and consumer learning.

The authors found that cultural acceptance of digital technology (CADT) is an antecedent to the adoption of digital shopping for food, but this is also mediated by consumers' appeal and affection for digital technology and consumers' digital readiness.

This study also indicates that DT influences consumer appeal and affection (CAA), especially amongst female consumers.

The paper represents an empirical investigation of a new conceptual framework that considers socio-cultural factors to understand consumers' use of digital technology in food shopping which has been an existing knowledge gap in current literature.

Virtual grocery shopping (VGS), or online grocery shopping, traditionally has seen slow adoption in Canada; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced consumers to seek safer ways to shop. Retailers have invested in building new infrastructure to meet the current consumer demands for VGS. However, the main driver for VGS behaviour has not been yet clearly identified. Additionally, it is also not unknown whether the shopping modalities will continue VGS after the pandemic. This study provides insights into consumer intentions to use VGS by extending the model of goal-directed behaviour (MGB) to incorporate consumer technological readiness.

The study collected 935 valid survey responses from an online survey panel of Canadian consumers. A two-step approach was applied to analyse the data, comprising confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The data quality and model fit were tested before testing the proposed relationships among the constructs: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative anticipated emotions, as well as technological readiness, desire and behaviour intentions. The mediation role of desire between frequency of past online grocery shopping behaviours and the future behavioural intention was also tested using SPSS PROCESS.

The study results showed that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative emotions, technological readiness and frequency of past VGS have a major impact on consumers' desire to embrace VGS in the future. Consumer desire also played a significant mediating role between frequency of past VGS behaviours and future shopping intention online. In addition, the frequency of past VGS showed an even stronger impact on behavioural intention among female consumers than among male consumers.

The findings of this study provide an original insight into the social, cultural and psychological factors that impact consumers' use of VGS, particularly the impacts of gender.

It has generally been anticipated that the growth of Internet technology and e-commerce would result in virtual grocery shopping (VGS) becoming a normal way of life for consumers worldwide. However, the adoption of VGS, except in China and other Asian countries, has been quite slow and there is little understanding for this reason. Using Canada as a research context, the purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of consumers towards VGS with a focus on their technological readiness and the impact of the optimisation of consumer learning.

A quantitative research methodology was undertaken using cluster analysis with descriptive statistics to segment the different groups of consumers from a sample of 1,034 adult respondents. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was then used to test a theoretical model for consumers’ intention to adopt VGS.

The study found that the attitudes of consumers towards virtual shopping, convenience motivation, perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived risk and consumer learning are all factors that impact consumers' intention to adopt virtual food shopping. The research also identified four segments of consumers in the Canadian market based on their attitudes and intention to adopt VGS. These results allow grocers to target the consumer groups favourable to VGS and provide insights on the factors that can be manipulated via marketing strategies to reach these consumers.

Retailers are provided with insights on consumers behaviour that will allow them to target specific segments with shopping modalities.

This research investigated VGS, focussing on consumer learning as a socio-cultural influence as well as the consumer's technological readiness as an intention to adopt to this modality of shopping for food. These constructs have not been investigated by previous studies on food grocery shopping.

This study was undertaken to investigate whether a service-oriented approach to the local food supply chain contributes to strengthened linkages between accommodation and agricultural sectors, thereby creating value for users.

The qualitative study examined levels of customer/consumer engagement (CE) within theoretical constructs of the service-oriented framework and value co-creation, intangible resources and valued relationship within the value chain and food service. Also, two explanatory case studies were conducted on two accommodation properties.

Empirical findings indicated that the hospitality business which emphasized a consumer-centric service approach throughout the value chain – both forward (toward the consumer) and backward (toward the supplier) – had greater success in engaging customers. It also highlighted the importance of service leadership.

The research study provides practical guidance to members of the local food supply chains in the hospitality sector and strategies that can be used to optimize all opportunities to ensure consumers’ needs are met and exceeded as a precursor for repeat business.

The intricacies of services when well understood and applied in hospitality businesses are likely to generate favorable outcomes such as poverty alleviation. Developing destinations invest significantly in tourism as a channel for economic development. Unfortunately, gains are forfeited since limited attention is given to strategically advancing consumer-centric service at the micro level in tourism businesses to the extent that these benefit other stakeholders. Fostering CE and developing a culture of service leadership appear to be critical success factors.

This study is unique and extremely relevant to island destinations as it provides insights using a service management framework in the Caribbean context on how destinations may enhance hospitality business through improved service in island states.

Smart retail technology adoption models are largely focused on consumer perceptions of the technology and the characteristics of digital technologies. However, the impact of the prior-to-use knowledge of consumers on the adoption of the technologies has been understudied. This research examined to what extent social acceptance and consumer learning can facilitate consumer adoption of digital grocery shopping (DGS).

This paper builds on the innovation–decision model to develop a framework to examine the impact of social acceptance and consumer learning on DGS. The research tested a structural model based on data collected from 611 North American participants.

This study found that the social acceptance of DGS directly and consumer learning indirectly affects the appeal of grocery shopping to consumers and consequently increases their intention to adopt this new shopping method. Furthermore, the results indicated that both hypothesised directions are parallelly mediated by digital convenience, the consumer’s digital readiness and digital trust.

This study extends the understanding of consumer adoption of DGS by highlighting the influence of consumer knowledge about DGS on their behavioural intention. Several important theoretical and practical implications are provided to help retail managers to develop service strategies.