Unshakable loyalty in the food sector: sustainable customer retention. Empirical study of organic food consumers in Germany

Because of high competitive pressure in the food sector producers and retailers constantly increase their marketing efforts to convince consumers of their own products, services, brands or stores. One of the main goals is to generate loyal consumers because they are less likely to switch to competitors and more tolerant of price increases than non-loyal consumers. But what is true consumer loyalty? Repurchases are often used as an approximate indicator of loyalty. But the marketing literature emphasises that to identify "true loyalty" it is important to consider both consumers' purchasing patterns as well as consumers' underlying attitudes. Thus, true loyalty includes both a behavioural component, which results in repeated purchases, and an attitudinal component, which results in a dispositional commitment to a product, brand, or company and associates a unique value with it. However, regarding the food sector and the characteristics of food products, the question arises whether the above mentioned strict definition of true consumer loyalty can be applied to the food sector. Our paper aims to empirically test this question. To do so we conducted 27 semi-structured in-depth interviews with regular customers of a German organic food retailer in March/April 2009.