Characteristics of loyal customers for trade chains in the German food retailing

In this paper customer loyalty will be examined with the help of budget ratios (budget shares). We address the question whether sociodemographic groups differ in their shopping behavior and their store loyalty. Loyalty is analyzed with regard to the ten largest food retail chains in Germany in 2002. It is shown that the loyalty of customers depends on the lifecycle stage of the household and household size for the most part. Older and single households are more loyal than younger families.