Segmentation of Retail Food Store Formats in Qingdao, China

This study empirically estimates a multivariate binary choice model for four categories of food shopping store formats. The results indicate that in the Qingdao market, traditional counter parts such as wet markets and small grocery stores have been dominated by supermarkets and hypermarkets. At the same time, the rapid growth of hypermarkets in Qingdao is significantly challenging current supermarkets in this city, but they do not compete extensively with wet markets and small grocery stores. Further development of various categories of the food shopping store format is linked to store owned characteristics, potential interrelations among existing retail formats, as well as consumers' demographics and shopping habits.