Complementing the customer’s shopping experience with food and beverage services

Nowadays, consumers are more and more looking for experiences in shopping areas. To complement the shopping experiences, functions with a focus on leisure and entertainment are added to the area such as food and beverage services. This research gains insight in the consumer preferences for food and beverage services in dominant high street shopping areas in The Netherlands and identifies consumer segments based on their choice behaviour. To identify these preferences a Stated Choice experiment is executed. The data is collected through a questionnaire that was answered by 1,687 respondents. The data analysis identified three consumer segments: the finer-diners, the no-preferencers and the very fast-casuals. The finer-diners prefer highly recommended food and beverage services with a ‘Casual and finer dining’ concept, followed by the ‘Fast-casual’ concept. These consumers are more likely to be older, to have a relatively high education and household income. The no-preferencers mostly do not have a preference for any of the proposed services. The very fast-casuals prefer a highly recommended food and beverage service with a ‘Fast-casual’ concept when they are accompanied by their partner or a group and the ‘Speed eating’ concept when they are with children. These consumers are more likely to be young. The results make it easier for real estate owners to formulate a food and beverage strategy that meets the consumer preferences.