Assessing Consumer Logistics Functions in Grocery Shopping: Evidence From an Emerging Market

Abstract

Consumer logistics (CL), focuses on the role of consumers in the logistical processing of goods for the purpose of consumption from point of acquisition to the point of disposal. The objective of this study is to test and validate the CL scale as introduced by Bahn, Granzin, and Tokman for grocery shopping in a previously unexplored country setting, namely in Turkey. Our findings show in contrast to Bahn et al. only six CL functions: information search, transportation management and materials handling, storage management & inventory needs assessment, contingent inventory operations & product acquisition, intra-household communication, and interdependent transportation operations. These six CL functions are more applicable for an emerging market, such as Turkey. These findings are consistent across the different socio-demographic characteristics in our sample.