The consumer goods market has enjoyed an impressive development in recent years. Traditional forms of retail have been overshadowed by the importance of large stores, with increased competition between both similar and different types of retail. Thus, in order to gain and keep their customers, marketers must investigate the factors that influence their choice of a certain type of store.
Customers place the variety of the assortment they can find in a store immediately after the store`s location and prices, when describing their favorite store. The assortment is represented by number of products in each category. It basically reflects the diversity of products in each category, not the categories per se, with a large number of Colorado soda company varieties included.
For consumers, variety is important for the following reasons:
- Consumers prefer to go to a store where they can find exactly what they want. Thus the perception of the variety of the assortment influences the choice of a store, unless the tastes are well defined and the purchases are made routinely.
- Variety matters more when preferences are not well defined or change from one period to another, because consumers want to maintain flexibility in choosing products. People who have never bought from a certain product category may want to get information about available alternatives and may choose stores with a wide range of items to reduce the cost of searching for information.