Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153

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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser

Grocery pickup creation of value: Customers benets vs. spatial dimension MARK
a, b a
Dany Vyt , Magali Jara , Grard Cliquet
a
IGR-IAE, Graduate School of Management, University of Rennes 1, Rennes Cedex, France
b
IUT of Saint-Nazaire, University of Nantes, Nantes, France

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This article examines an Internet grocery shopping model very frequent in the UK and in France: the grocery
Click and collect pickup system. It strives to answer this research questions: does this system create value for consumers? The
Customer value methodology relies on in-depth interviews with retailers and data from French retail grocery industries. The
Grocery pickups exploratory approach through experts interviews concerning the content of retailers selling propositions for
Retailing
consumers reinforces the theoretical framework related to customers value and grocery pickup. It appears that
Spatial dimension
long term value could exist through the satisfaction of functional, experiential and relational benets responsible
for the uniqueness of the retailer's positioning. Given the asymmetry between retailers approach and consumer's
one, the second part is focused on a particular aspect of the functional benet: closeness in retailing. Then, an
entropy measurement in a French context from two large samples of 1576 hypermarkets and 1473 grocery
pickups are conducted. Results show that grocery pickup locations fulll this sine qua non successful condition.
Nevertheless, it is made evidence that this new channel is most of the time developed in overstored areas.

1. Introduction France, Auchan Group started with a dedicated subsidiary called

Retailing expansion throughout the world is probably one of the
main economic features of the second part of the 20th century and
today retailers are among the largest companies in the world, over-
taking former huge manufacturers. Founded in 1962, Walmart has more
than 11,000 stores in 30 countries around the world and reached a
turnover of more than US$ 482 billion during the scal year 2015. The
networking, or reticulation, of these retail companies has shifted retail
management from very local concerns to true regional, national, and
even international issues, and network spatial management is now a big
stake for these companies (Cliquet, 1998). Internet is now upsetting
retailers strategies even in the grocery sector forcing them to propose
this new channel and to respond to pure players like Amazon settling
physical stores or buying brick and mortar retail chain (Whole Foods).
Hypermarkets display a retail system designed to let consumers
buying whatever product in a minimum of time through an in-store self-
service organization in a big boxes. The development of Internet sales
has enforced retailers to envisage specic systems to mix both in-store
sales and Internet sales. French hypermarkets companies, following UK
examples like Tesco, decided to open grocery pickups as it is called in
the U.S. These grocery pickups allow their customers to order and pay
on Internet and then to drive to a specic station located either close to
an existing store or to a contender's one to collect their products. In
Chronodrive in 2004 and Centres distributeurs E. Leclerc (called Leclerc
below) followed in 2007 by adding grocery pickups to their hy-
permarkets opening then a new marketing channel. Today, more than
ten years after the rst opening, France registers more than 3632 gro-
cery pickups, which means nearly twice as many as hypermarkets.
This grocery pickup system, called drive by French retailers,
corresponds to a retail format evolution based on Internet burst in retail
sectors and the development of multi-channel distribution networks.
With this Internet grocery shopping model, consumers can shop
whenever and wherever they want. In France, this new system can
account for 30% of the growth of a retailer: it appears as a real internal
growth potential for networks. In the US, Walmart develops this new
channel and expands grocery pickups to 23 markets1 and new locations
are planned. However, brick and mortar retailers have to fulll certain
conditions to successfully become multichannel retailers (Agnihotri,
2015).
Grocery pickup is a way, on the one hand, to response to consumers
new buying modes (Beck and Rygl, 2015), and on the other hand, to
compete with pure player retailers and now with Amazon one-hour
deliveries (and even half an hour in Paris and London according to
Amazon's website). For instance in the US, Walmart grocery pickup
system represents a way to conquer new territories such as mid-size
markets where home delivery is more challenging and neglected by

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dany.vyt@univ-rennes1.fr (D. Vyt).
1
Source: Springer J. (2016, April). Walmart expanding grocery pickup, Supermarket news.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.08.004
Received 2 April 2017; Received in revised form 17 July 2017; Accepted 2 August 2017
0969-6989/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D. Vyt et al.
pure players. In this multichannel shopping context, retailers may
question the location of their grocery pickups, and more generally
speaking, the spatial consistency of their network. This research in-
vestigates, on the one hand, customers attraction in order to see
whether grocery pickups bring any real value, and on the other hand,
the importance of the spatial dimension in retail networks management
by focusing on grocery pick-ups and wonders whether they are eective
tools to fulll closeness in retailing and to optimize their territorial
coverage.
This article is structured as follows. The rst section presents some
theoretical background to better understand how a grocery pickup
stands in the retailing evolution. Then, it deals with consumers benets
(functional, experiential and relational) and the future of grocery
pickups for retailers through interviews with experts. Given the asym-
metry between retailers approach and consumer's one (Schultz et al.,
2016), the second part is focuses on a particular aspect of the functional
benet: closeness in retailing. Indeed recent research in the grocery
pickup led made evidence that geographical closeness is the rst se-
lection criteria for customers. The question is: can the spatial devel-
opment of grocery pickup increase retailer's territory coverage? So, the
second section questions retail spatial strategies by mobilizing the re-
lative entropy measurement. Results of the third section show evidence
that the grocery pickups do not represent any competitive advantage
for retail network spatial strategies. Finally, the discussion of the
ndings is presented, including implications, limitations and research
perspectives.
2. Grocery pickups value: customers benets in question
2.1. Grocery pickup implementation
Argos, a UK retailer and a subsidiary of Home Retail Group, with 809
shops in 571 towns in the UK and in Ireland,2 was the rst to open a
grocery pickup in early 2000. In the food retail sector, Tesco was the
pioneer and the rst to be really successful (Colla and Lapoule, 2012).
Then the French Groupe Auchan launched Chronodrive in 2004. This
system is composed of a two-step process: 1) the consumer visits a retail
website to browse, buy and pay for selected products; 2) the consumer
drives to the store or to any place where products can be picked up,
unlike cybermarkets which are based on a home delivery system. The
consumer delegates to the retailer the task of preparing his order:
grocery retailing has switched from self-service to free service.
A pickup point can be either located close to a store or isolated from
any store in the same chain. In the rst case, customers using the
Internet order their products and pay for them and drive to the store
where the service is available to pick them up at least two hours after
theyve ordered. This is called a drive-in system. Order picking operates
from stores that have the products at hand. In the second case, called
drive-out, there is no physical store, but only warehouses serving as
collecting points. This expansion strategy is mainly used in an oensive
conquest of a territory (Marouseau, 2013). The drive-in consists of lo-
cating a near point of sale, a bonded warehouse and order picking. In
this context, the retailer implements here a defensive stance (Colla and
Lapoule, 2012) without any real motivation to conquer territories; it
rather seeks to maintain its position in a given geographic area.
Grocery pickup prices are either similar to stores or sometimes even
lower in order to attract new customers. This free service corresponds
to the current consumption patterns of consumers who show little
willingness to pay for grocery deliveries (Goethals et al., 2012; Hbner
et al., 2016). And Tesco decided in 2016 to cancel the surcharge on
"click & collect" orders for sales under 35 euros via the Tesco Direct
website. The grocery pickup is probably not a true evolution of the
2 4
http://www.timeo.co.uk/argos-opening-times/ and www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/
stores/servlet/ArgosStoreLocatorMainMobile?langId=110&storeId=10151.
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153
retailing wheel (McNair, 1958), but simply an evolution of the store
itself by completing its range of services to consumers.
2.2. Grocery pickup in a multichannel strategy
The grocery pickup system stems from the idea by ROBO (Research
Online Buying Oine) or ROPO (Research Online Purchase Oine)
(Kalyanam and Tsay, 2013). Despite some high-quality syntheses of the
literature on multichannel (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010; Kent
and Gear, 2017), interrelationships between channels are still ques-
tionable. Are grocery pickups a utilitarian channel, or is it a perfect
substitute for traditional brick and mortar store? Online and oine
channels are undeniably very connected whether is loyalty or sa-
tisfaction to a retailer (Wallace et al., 2004; Byoungho et al., 2010). For
example, using brand extension theory in a Chinese bank context, Yang
et al. (2013) demonstrated that online channel adoption is linked to
oine channel service quality.
A multichannel strategy encounters many disadvantages and the
multiplication of channels does not necessarily imply an increase in the
number of customers (Rosenbloom, 2007). If the size of the potential
market stagnates, the addition of a new channel entails additional costs
for the brand and therefore a decline in protability (Van Baal and
Dach, 2005). Worse, researches have denounced a possible cannibali-
zation between channels (Rosenbloom, 2007; Seck, 2010; Colla and
Lapoule, 2012, 2015).
Another stream of research shows that multichannel strategies
create opportunities for synergies across channels (Verhoef et al., 2007;
Zhang et al., 2010). Wallace et al. (2004) demonstrate that channel
complementarity increases the satisfaction of the shopper, thus leading
him to be more loyal to the store chain. It seems that the relationships
between the channels also depend on the life cycle of each sale mode.
Indeed, Fornari et al. (2016) studied the impact of stores opening for an
initial pure retailer and made evidence that initial cannibalization ul-
timately turns into positive synergies between the channels. Kollmann
et al. (2012) analyzed the multichannel system from the consumers
point of view and concluded that cannibalization and synergetic eects
between channels depend on customers and their channel switching
propensity.
Recent research in the eld of grocery pickup shows that the pur-
pose of this grocery pickup is to consolidate the service relationship
established by the company with the customer (Douard et al., 2015; Vyt
et al., 2017). This channel is perceived as a complementary service and
tends to make the customers more loyal.
Regarding multichannel retail mix harmonization, grocery pickups
do not respect the usual practices of multi-channel retailers in terms of
assortment. While most multichannel retailers use online shopping to
complement the oine oer of brick and mortar stores (Zhang et al.,
2010), grocery pickups oer a narrower and shallower assortment than
traditional hypermarkets or supermarkets. That is to say that grocery
pickups propose few goods categories and a limited assortment in each
category. The assortment of a grocery pickup is three times less than
that of a supermarket and nearly six times that of a hypermarket.3
Fig. 1 shows that the business model is barely fteen years old and
has already 3325 units that cover the French territory. Despite its re-
cency, this Internet grocery shopping model has every year more and
more consumers: more than 6 million households used grocery pickups
in France in 2016. This development model now captures around 5.5%4
market share of consumer products, with an average basket of around
68 euros to be compared with 43 euros in hypermarkets and 31 in
supermarkets.5
Concerning data, interrelationships between channels are complex.
3
Source: Nielsen Scantrack, 4 juillet 2017.
Source: Kantar WordlPanel, Distribook, Fvrier 2017.
5
Source: Nielsen homescan & scantrack, 4 juillet 2017.
D. Vyt et al.
Fig. 1. Number of Grocery Pick-Up Stations in France. Source: Drive Insights, 2016.
Indeed, Carrefour which is not very present on the grocery pickup
channel, is still the number one food retailer in France in 2016, but
encounters a decline of 0.5 points whereas Leclerc, the number one on
the grocery pick up channel in terms of stations and penetration rate,
increases its global market share (online and oine) buy 0.4 point.
Even if the territorial development of the grocery pickups seems to
inuence the performance of the networks, it is dicult to establish a
causal link whether there is a cannibalization process or a real com-
plementarity.
3. Grocery pickups and consumers benets
A literature review about customers benets reveals sources of the
value creation. This framework is reinforced by an exploratory research
revealing current managerial practices towards grocery pickups custo-
mers. Hence, improvements emerge to maximize this value creation.
Our exploratory study was based on in-depth interviews with gro-
cery pickup managers and network managers. Experts interviews are
recommended in this research because of the absence of theory speci-
cally dedicated to this phenomenon and to reveal its critical aspects.
The interview guide was structured around the three theoretical con-
sumer benets: functional, experiential and symbolic (Keller, 1993).
Once a retail format reaches maturity, benets from functional ex-
pectations to the consumer are insucient. They become basic re-
quirements, not ones creating value. Thus, a study of all expected
consumer benets, functional, experiential and symbolic or relational
(more adapted to a specic service perspective) is interesting.
3.1. Functional benets
Functional benets have already emerged from the grocery pickup,
as it relieves consumer purchasing constraints like time pressure, for
instance (Colla and Lapoule, 2012). Retailers are well aware of the is-
sues of the grocery pickup's practicality as an explanation for the
growth of this new channel. According to a grocery pickup network
manager, grocery pickup is ideal in terms of convenience for time-saving
and shopping convenience. No longer carries four times the products". In-
deed, usually the consumer manipulates products between the point of
sale and his home. He takes the products in shelves, places them in his
basket and then releases them during the checkout control. Then he
puts them back in his basket before nally putting them in the trunk of
his car.
Retailers eorts to reduce time of preparation and removal illus-
trate the response to this functional need. In most cases, delivery time is
reduced from two hours to thirty minutes. Retailers can go even further
when competitive issues are at stake. This is a way to counteract a
competitor by reducing delivery times to zero, especially a when a brick
and mortar seller develops a grocery pickup service: Delivery time is
reduced to zero in some grocery pick-ups especially in the oensive ones.
This is our competitive advantage over picking drive-ins. That's how you kill
a Carrefour drive (from a grocery pickup manager in-depth interview).
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153
According to Keller (1993), Functional benets are the more intrinsic
advantages of service consumption and usually correspond to the tangibles
attributes. These benets are often linked to fairly basic motivations (p. 4).
This need is expressed concretely through the purchase of low in-
volvement products, especially grocery items such as water, milk,
laundry soap, canned products. Thus, in 2016, the grocery pickups re-
present 8.8% of poultry meat sales, and 7% reading plain water.6
Mevel and Morvan (2015) add that functional benets play a more
important role than other benets when the grocery pickups is new
(customers do not have a long experience with the channel). The sa-
tisfaction of functional benets is neither perceived nor conscious to the
consumer, leading to "basic requirements," being easily imitable.
However, based on our in-depth interviews, retailers have to remain
vigilant in two aspects: the choice and stock-outs of their grocery
pickup stations.
Grocery pickups assortments are extensive. They provide a huge
quantity of products (not only food items but also non-food products) in
a huge quantity of categories in order to satisfy the functional needs of
consumers. For instance, in France, Cora has the most important as-
sortment with 31,961 SKUs7 on average for its drive-in system, and in
the US, Walmart grocery pick-up has 30,000 SKUs.8 In this case, tra-
ditional stores provide the infrastructure to accommodate this shopping
mode.
However, retailers are aware that it is possible to have a more
limited choice, particularly in terms of solitary stations (70008000
SKUs on average) even if they aim at satisfying daily needs: The choice
is ok. It is less than in hypermarket, but it meets all the necessary units
conrms a network manager. Thus, all retailers increased their on-line
assortment: + 21% for the drives-out of Casino and even + 21% for the
solitary stations of the Carrefour.
Even though it does not create any value, stock-outs can damage the
click and collect in the same way as traditional outlets where the re-
peated lack of a branded product will cause dissatisfaction, leading to a
store change (Campo et al., 2000; Connan-Ghesquire, 2011). We dont
have all the products at the same time due to stock-outs. The stock-out rate is
not explosive, but when there are stock-outs it is more apparent than in
hypermarkets (from an in-depth interview with a grocery pickup
manager). Grocery pick-ups must therefore ensure that they oer a
complete assortment to satisfy functional benets and to ensure repeat
purchases (Fernie et al., 2010).
More than functional benets, consumers can nd experiential and
relational benets. By satisfying these benets, retailers ensure a dif-
ferentiated and unique image (Keller, 1993), dicult for competitors to
imitate, therefore creating signicant value.
3.2. Experiential benets
According to Keller (1993), experiential benets provide a sensory
pleasure or cognitive stimulation and are part of the hedonic con-
sumption of the customer. Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) state that
this experiential perspective is phenomenological in spirit and regards
consumption as a primarily subjective state of consciousness with a
variety of symbolic meanings, hedonic responses, and aesthetic criteria
(p. 132).
Filser (2002) and Dupuis and Le Jean (2004) add to the knowledge
of generating experience. Filser, in 2002, oered a synthesis of various
past contributions dedicated to experiential marketing. These two
major contributions (Dupuis and Le Jean, 2004; Filser, 2002) show that
marketing oriented to an experiential dimension generates creative
solutions, original and additional opportunities untested by retailers.
Based on their qualitative research, Colla and Lapoule (2012) reveal
6
Source: Iri, Distribook, February 2017.
7
Source: Drive Insight, Distribook, February 2017.
8
Source: http://grocery.walmart.com.
D. Vyt et al.
that many consumers said they would like easier-to-use, more intuitive
navigation (p. 854). The design and the ergonomics of the website
have to have a high level of quality to play a key role in the grocery
pickup's success. In this way, we can imagine that it would begin by
taking orders from the Internet, through exciting navigation and re-
dened e-merchandising, and would continue up to the point where the
goods are replaced (by new additional services). In the case of grocery
pickups, the presence of tablets generates an additional service that
makes the delivery immediate: Some stations are equipped with a tablet
at the reception. It's possible to order some last minute products. The fu-
ture objective is to improve the experience lived on the station by adding
music, interactive terminals, for instance. We are thinking of enriching the
physical collect point by exposing non-food products to create a specic
atmosphere; making pancakes and tastings to animate more for instance; we
are thinking also of extending services on the collect point by providing a
deli, bakery, steakhouse Adding new services (from an in-depth inter-
view with a pickup point manager).
In addition, retailers work on the aesthetic dimension of physical
collection points. This topic largely concerns managers today, as stated
by a network manager: The appearance is not terrible. We're in a ware-
house. Sometimes it's creepy. There is nothing around. We have to work on
the experiential. Our eorts will have to be concentrated on this variable; it is
clearly our future priority (from an in-depth interview with a grocery
pick-up manager). This comment joins the qualitative results of Colla
and Lapoule (2012) concerning the importance of the geographical area
as a key factor of the grocery pickup's success.
More than experiential benets, relational benets lead to sustain-
able relationships between customers and retailers. They emerge from
the retailer side, specically a higher consumer condence.
3.3. Relational benets
All research focuses on the relationship marketing conrmation that
condence is a mediating concept of the relationship between the
consumer and the brand (Frisou, 2000; Gurviez and Korchia, 2002;
Sirieix and Dubois, 1999). The concept of trust in the relational para-
digm, gives the brand a central role (or the retailer), since the consumer
relies on it to reduce uncertainty and make decisions. Gurviez and
Korchia (2002) provide a clear and concise reading of the concept.
Brand condence can be dened as a psychological variable that re-
ects a set of accumulated presumptions about the credibility, integrity
and goodwill that the consumer attributes to the brand. In grocery
pickup, consumers are connected to the brand and the product and their
opinion of the brand can be expressed in many ways, as explained by a
network manager: On the website, consumers can request a product they
want to see in the assortment. In addition, there are suggestion boxes to rate
the reception of the stations. Finally, it is possible to write directly to the
stations; we answer all emails.
Note that the measure of this concept is dicult because consumers
use their past experiences to infer beliefs and future behaviors (Gurviez
and Korchia, 2002). In other words, trust is both a cause and a con-
sequence of the created value.
Based on this brand condence work, we propose dening retailer
condence as a psychological variable that reects a set of accumulated
presumptions about the credibility, integrity and goodwill that the
consumer assigns to the retailer. The rm works trust through re-
assurance to develop a more human image of the station. We need to
permanently animate collection points. We need a deliveryman, especially
during rush hours, to represent the quality of the group. It is not developed
enough. That's to say reinsurance during the waiting time. The relation
with customers and their condence towards us are more intense than in
hypermarkets. We try to personalize the relation with a customer by taking
into account his personal requirements for instance, one of our customers
demands green bananas; another wants [their products] to be delivered in a
box (instead of bags). We save these specic needs to satisfy customers all
the time. In the case of problems, we take time to personally call the customer
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153
to listen to him; to explain and to nd a positive solution (from an in-depth
interview with a grocery pickup manager).
To conclude, the corporate dimension can create the highest value
for customers, because personality and trust towards the retailer cannot
be imitated by others; however, retailers cannot increase customer
value without satisfying functional expectations rst. This approach is
in line with the ndings of Shamim et al. (2016) the corporate brand
experience plays an important role in positive customer behaviors. One
way of dealing with these problems of productivity and protability
could be to wait for some closings. In retail groups like Leclerc, Inter-
march or Systme U, which are retail cooperatives, members could
decide one day to end the grocery pickup experience if there is an ab-
sence of appropriate customers, as Picot-Coupey et al. (2009) high-
lighted in their study.
The creation of value is so far analyzed from the viewpoint of the
retailers. However, recent research shows that there are huge dier-
ences between retailer's sense giving and consumers sense making
(Schultz et al., 2016). So, previous researches made evidence that an
important element for consumers in their decision to visit or not a re-
tailer remains spatial closeness (Bergadaa and Del Bucchia 2009,
Schultz et al., 2016). Especially, regarding grocery pickup, spatial clo-
seness appears to be the rst criteria choice for customers (Mevel and
Morvan, 2015; Vyt et al., 2017). Hence, the second part of this research
focuses on this specic aspect of the functional benets and wonders if
the introduction of grocery pickups may increase territory coverage to
satisfy this functional need.
4. The spatial strategy as a determinant of grocery value
By developing the grocery pickup on the whole territory, retailers
multiply the points of contact with their customers. They now have the
choice in the same area between a traditional store and a pickup point.
The location of these grocery pickups therefore represents a denite
competitive advantage in terms of choice made by the consumer. Since
the new network can become a determining lever in the optimization
strategy of the territorial network, the second part of this research
consists in measuring if grocery pickups improve global territory cov-
erage of French retail chains. This seems to be the sine qua non to
develop functional benets from the consumer points of view.
4.1. Territory coverage as a retail spatial strategy
Spatial strategies suer from a dearth of research in marketing and
retailing literature if we except useful but old and rather descriptive
studies (Laulajainen, 1987) or methodological approaches (Ghosh and
Craig, 1991; Ghosh and McLaerty, 1987).
When a territory is more or less saturated or when opening new
stores is impeded by law, as is the case in many European countries like
France, the temptation is strong to develop a new format and to use it to
increase presence in the market and, hence, territory coverage.
Grocery pickups benet from network image as well as logistics and
massive purchases (Cliquet, 1998; Cliquet and Guillo, 2013; Colla,
2003). As studied before, several spatial development strategies of
networks do exist. In order to benet from positive synergies with the
store network, new grocery pickups are located close to one another,
that is to say, close to a traditional store under the same banner fol-
lowing then the former location strategy of the retail network which
entails a real disparity in the location of grocery pickups in France as
shown in Fig. 2. Therefore, a rst hypothesis is proposed:
H1. Grocery pickups improve global territory coverage of French retail
chains
Fig. 2 shows that grocery pickups are mainly located in the western
part of France. Thus, the density of grocery pickups per capita high-
lights this disparity. In the East of France grocery pickups density is
very low: Alsace has one grocery pickup for 35,604 inhabitants and
D. Vyt et al.
Fig. 3. Drives-out Leclerc. Source: Made by authors with data from LSA Expert
Lorraine one for 31,364 inhabitants whereas in the West of France,
Brittany is the densest region with a grocery pickup for 12,252 in-
habitants. As shown in Fig. 3, the Leclerc has initially concentrated
deployment of its grocery pickups in the Britany, where its commercial
density in terms of hypermarkets is the strongest. Indeed, in this region,
the historic center of the group, Leclerc owns more than 29% of the
hypermarkets and 85% of Brittany grocery pickups are under the Leclerc
banner.
What about location strategies vis--vis competition? As Hotelling
149
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153
Fig. 2. Food Drives in France. Source: Authors, made with data
from LSA expert, 2016.
explains it (1929), competing networks are structured in relation to one
another. The relationship with competitors in twofold: either by
avoiding or confronting one another. Fig. 3 shows that Leclerc grocery
pickups are also widely distributed in northern France, the historic
stronghold of competitor Auchan. This is a direct confrontation strategy
with competitors. In a symmetric way, the Auchan uses drive out gro-
cery pickup to conquer new territories. For example, since the Group
was not allowed by competition authorities to open stores in Brittany, it
opened four drive out grocery pickups under the banner Chronodrive.
D. Vyt et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153

Auchan group territorial network is therefore judicious since it com- Table 2

bines several spatial strategies enabling it to establish a position of French retailers grocery pickup database.
leader in its territory of origin which is the North of France while
Name of Number of Territory Number of Territory
conquering new ones, the West in particular. This is a very local ex- hypermarkets drive-in coverage of drive-out coverage of
ample. Hence, hypothesis two states: chains drive-in drive-out

H2. Grocery pickups improve territory coverage of French retail chains Carrefour 221 0.91 14 0.53
in specic regions Leclerc 225 0.898 342 0.9246
Hyper U 307 0831 3 0241
It is worth noting the great disparity in the development of grocery Cora 58 0719 0 0
pickups throughout the French territory. At a whole country level, is Auchan 62 0733 61 0688
this strategy sustainable? Can grocery pickups improve territorial cov- Gant/casino 98 0856 12 0546
Intermarch 68 0799 2 0152
erage of a hypermarket chain?
Total 1039 434

4.2. Methodology and data

4.2.1. Relative entropy measurement
A method of territorial coverage measurement based on relative
entropy evaluates the gain in spatial value whenever a retail network
intends to acquire another chain (Cliquet, 1998). It also explains
longitudinally (over time and depending on the network life cycle
phase) how the spatial strategies of the network change (Cliquet, 2000).
The relative entropy measures the spatial dispersion as follows.
k Carrefour and System U companies are also part of this trend and focus
E = fi. Log (fi)
i=1
network and weighs only 3.68% of the channel. These retail companies
have various organizational forms: public companies (Carrefour, Casino,
Cora), family company (Auchan), cooperatives or retailers association
(Intermarch, Leclerc, Systme U).
All retailers do not have the same strategy regarding the develop-
ment of the grocery pickup. Thus, Cora does not develop the drives-out,
while each of its hypermarkets provides the infrastructure to have a
drive-in. In the same vein, the company Intermarch outts nearly 75%
of its hypermarkets with a drive-in so that there are only two drive-outs.
on the drives-in. Conversely, Leclerc has more drives-out than drives-in.

Where E = entropy; k = number of geographical areas; ni = number of 5. Results: Territory coverage measurement of grocery pickups in
stores in the i area; fi = store frequency in an area (fi = ni/N); N = France
number of stores.
We can then measure relative entropy as follows: 5.1. Grocery pickups development and global territory coverage
Relative entropy = = E / Log k ,
Table 2 provides the number of grocery pickups, drives-in and
The use of the relative system allows a measure calculated in the drives-out, in 2016 and their territorial coverage, measured by relative
interval [0, 1] and allows simpler comparisons with competing net- entropy. The entropy enables to measure the spatial dispersion of a
works (Cliquet, 1998). The closer it is to 1, the better the territorial population, here of the French retail networks. The more spatially
coverage is. dispersed a population is, the greater the entropy is. The French d-
partement will be the geographical reference area. More specically,
4.2.2. Data on French grocery pickups we used the 94 dpartements in Metropolitan France (excluding
The study focuses on French grocery pickups and studies if this Corsica).
Internet grocery shopping model is an eective tool for enabling hy- The network of 342 drive-outs of the Leclerc is located in 84 de-
permarket networks to optimize their territorial coverage. Can grocery partments of metropolitan France out of a total of 94 departments. In
pickups be useful to conquer yet uncovered areas? The propositions are the department of Meuse, there is one Leclerc drive-out, hence a fre-
tested in a hypermarket setting. According to INSEE (French National quency of 0.0029 and a log value of 0.0074. In the department
Institute for Statistics), in France, the ocial denition of a hy- of the Finistre, there are 14 Leclerc drives-out, hence a frequency of
permarket is the following: a self-service retail store deriving less than 0.0409 and a value for log of 0.0568. We have done all these
three-quarter of its sales from food and having a sales oor area of calculations for each department and obtained an entropy value of
25,000 square feet or more. This article uses real data as shown in 1.8244 and a relative entropy value of RE = 0.9246. Then we did this
Table 1. for each group, for drives-in and drives-out. Table 2 shows that even
The sample consists of 1576 hypermarkets; all belonging to the with less drives-in units Gant Casino has a greater territorial coverage
seven largest retail network in the French territory. Although Carrefour than the System U. If we focus only on drive-outs, Leclerc has the highest
is the leading retailer in Europe, it has 309 hypermarkets in France, entropy with a value of 0.9246. Cora chose not to develop drive-outs
compared with 530 for the Leclerc. Cora hypermarkets represent a small which explains an entropy equal to zero for this channel. Table 3
quanties the exact contribution of drive-outs to the territorial
Table 1
French Hypermarkets Database. Table 3
French retailer coverage.
Name of Number of % of cluster
hypermarkets chains hypermarkets Terrirory coverage: Territory coverage:
hypermarkets hypermarkets + drive-out
Carrefour 309 19.60
Leclerc 530 33.63 Carrefour 0.923 0.920
Hyper U 345 21.89 Leclerc 0.950 0.949
Cora 58 3.68 Hyper U 0,846 0,847
Auchan 135 8.56 Cora 0,719 0,719
Gant/Casino 108 6.85 Auchan 0,840 0,843
Intermarch 91 5.77 Gant/casino 0,869 0,874
Total 1576 100 Intermarch 0,815 0,818

150
D. Vyt et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153

coverage of networks. Two measures are analyzed simultaneously: the
territorial coverage of hypermarkets and then that of the hypermarket
and drive-out networks. The objective here is to evaluate the con-
tribution of drives-out in the group coverage.
We can see that most hypermarket networks show a very good
coverage of the French territory. Thus, the 225 Leclerc hypermarkets
cover homogeneously the country, which explains its relative entropy
of 0.950. Only Cora has a lower entropy of 0.719 due to the high
concentration of hypermarkets in eastern France. It means that this
retail network is absent from several departments and that its territorial
network has several "holes". In a purpose of territory coverage optimi-
zation, grocery pickups allow Auchan (Auchan drive, the drive-ins, and
Chronodrive, the drive-outs of the group) to increase its relative entropy.
The single presence of hypermarkets confers relative entropy of 0.840
whereas this measure reaches 0.843 when drives-out are added.
Regarding Leclerc, the French retailer with the largest number of gro-
cery pickups, the relative entropy slightly decreases regarding the lo-
cation of the drives-out and hypermarkets. It means that drives-out are
located in the same dpartements as traditional hypermarkets and
increase concentration. Carrefour faces the same situation. This shows
evidence that retailers develop grocery pickups in areas where they are
traditionally present in order to strengthen local positions.
Finally, no signicant change occurs between relative entropy when
considering only hypermarkets and relative entropy when hy-
permarkets and drive-outs are included. For all retailers, contrary to the
prediction of H1, solitary grocery pickup stations openings have not
signicantly improved territory coverage in the French territory. H 1 is
not supported.
5.2. Grocery pickups development and territory coverage in specic regions
Since it is made evidence that grocery pickups are not deployed in
strategic locations to improve retail chain global territory coverage,
what about a more micro-level analysis at the regional level? In other
words, can grocery pickups be used as a tool to conquer specic re-
gions? To verify H2 we still use relative entropy.
Table 4 show relative entropy of the global network: stores and
solitary stations (drives-out). It simulates territorial coverage without
drives-out in each of the twelves French regions. This means to making
simulations with a hypothetical value of zero concerning the number of
drive-out, region by region basis. For example, Intermarch Group has
no solitary stations in Britany and Normandy, so it has the same relative
entropy as the network as a whole. In the same vein, there is no Car-
refour drive-out in the "center" region or in the "Grand Est" region,
which explains why the relative entropy without drive is identical.
The relative entropy of the Leclerc network as a whole (hy-
permarkets + drives-out) is 0.949. This retailer has 34 drives-out in the
"Hauts de France" region (i.e. northern France). Hence big entropy
change when we simulate no drive-out in the specic region. Indeed,
relative entropy falls to 0.921. This shows that retailers use drives-out
as a tool for conquering new territories, in particular the North, terri-
tory of origin of its competitor Auchan. In the same vein when removing
the drives out of the Auchan in the "New Auquitaine" region, the relative
entropy decreased from 0.843 to 8.03. This simulation reects a sig-
nicant deterioration in its territorial coverage.
Moreover, the results show a signicant deterioration in the terri-
torial coverage of certain networks if the drives-out are withdrawn of
their region of origin. Thus, the relative entropy of the Leclerc passes
from 0.949 to 0.924 if one removes the drives out of Brittany (territory
of origin of the retailer). In the same vein, the relative entropy of the
Auchan decreases from 0.843 to 0.814 if one removes the drives-out
located in the region Hauts de France. In this context, retailers are in
a defensive logic (Colla and Lapoule, 2011), with no real motivation to
conquer territories. They aim to maintain their dominant position over
a given geographical region. The territorial networks of the Auchan and
Leclerc are therefore judicious since they combine several spatial stra-
tegies enabling it to establish a leading position in their respective
territory of origin while conquering new ones.
The individual territory coverage of the retailers can change in
specic cases, when solitary stations are withdrawn of specic regions.
The individual relative entropies are partially consistent with hypoth-
esis 2. In other words, grocery pickups partially improve territory
coverage of French retail chains in specic regions.
6. Discussion
6.1. Theoretical implications
Based on a literature review and in-depth interviews, conditions for
a successful grocery pickup that benet consumers are identied. More
precisely, customers experiential benets are key factors. Retailers
have to innovate when it comes to customers sensory pleasure and
cognitive stimulation to provide customers with an exciting and easy
shopping experience, leading to a unique positioning of their pickup
stations. Websites and all features in physical areas are concerned with
providing customer satisfaction. Retailers have to maintain relational
eorts to ensure customers sustainable condence towards them, in-
cluding, at a local level, intensive human contact between the sta and
customers and corporate brand communication at a strategic level. The
corporate dimension plays a signicant role in value co-creation ac-
tivities, as measured by Shamim et al. (2016).
Based on an exploratory approach with experts, this research pro-
vides the necessary theoretical background to conduct later exploratory
and conrmatory analyses in order to measure customers perceptions
and to nally identify precisely key components of the value creation.
6.2. Managerial implications
This paper shows that retailers are too often using grocery pickups
as tactical tools to hinder local contenders activity. More positively, it

Table 4
Territory coverage of French retail chains without specic regions.

Name of the Relative Relative entropy without specic regions

chain entropy of
the Bretagne Normandie Center Auvergne Bourgogne Ile de Hauts de PACA Occitanie Nouvelle Grand Est Pays
network Val de Rhne Franche France France aquitaine de la
(HM+ Loire Alpes Comt Loire
solitary
station)

Carrefour 0.920 0.918 0.920 0.920 0.915 0.920 0.911 0.919 0.918 0.920 0.918 0.920 0.920
Leclerc 0.949 0.924 0.917 0.930 0,919 0.935 0.925 0.921 0.935 0.948 0.918 0.923 0.931
Systme U 0.847 0.846 0.847 0.847 0,845 0.847 0.847 0.847 0.844 0.847 0.847 0.847 0.847
Auchan 0.843 0.827 0.829 0.836 0.830 0.843 0.816 0.814 0.821 0.833 0.803 0.837 0.840
Gant Casino 0.874 0.870 0.874 0.874 0.863 0.874 0.850 0.874 0.865 0.865 0.874 0.874
Intermarch 0.818 0.818 0.818 0.818 0.818 0.818 0.807 0.813 0.818 0.818 0.818 0.818 0.818

151
D. Vyt et al.
enables to understand how retailers could improve the value creation of
their new formula. Based on the customer literature review and experts
interviews, this research provides future potential positioning axes to
develop a unique image leading to create a sustainable relationship
with customers. It provides a theoretical framework to consider the
value creation of this new channel and it sets conditions for a successful
grocery pick-up.
Given the asymmetry between consumer and retailers points of
view, we focused on a particular aspect of functional benet: store
closeness that appears to be an important criteria choice for consumer
in the pickup grocery context. The main objective is to verify that this
sine qua non successful condition is met by retailers.
We still know little about the eects of grocery pickup development
on chain territory coverage. Territory coverage is measured by means of
entropy and it is showed that this new channel is not devoted to con-
quer yet undeveloped areas. Indeed, grocery pickups are not deployed
in understored locations to improve retail chain global territory cov-
erage. In other words, grocery pickups compete against other tradi-
tional points of sales to take away a portion of consumers expenditures.
As showed previously, if the potential market size is stagnating, the
addition of a new channel leads to additional costs for the retailer and
therefore a decline in protability (Van Baal and Dach, 2005). Worse,
some denounce the possible cannibalization between channels (Colla
and Lapoule, 2015; Rosenbloom, 2007; Seck, 2010).
We can conclude that retailers have to develop new competitive
advantages to nd new internal growth. New services also have to be
added to grocery pickups to dierentiate each retailer from its com-
petitors. This is all the more true as grocery pickups have a logic of
direct confrontation with their competitors, as shown above for Leclerc
and Auchan. But as this service is free to customers, to make this new
activity protable, retailers need to attract as many consumers as
possible. The major issue for retailers is to create value for their cus-
tomers since the only locations of grocery pickups are not a competitive
advantage. Retail networks pool the e-shopping and the grocery
pickups (Picot-Coupey et al., 2009) to increase the value creation to the
customer (Oh and Teo, 2010; Hunt et al., 2012).
6.3. Limitations and future research
In this research, closeness in retailing, that is to say one aspect of the
functional benet highly sought after by customers, is apprehended by
network territory coverage. Territory is measured by means of entropy
and does not consider the distance between grocery pickups. Ghosh and
McLaerty (1987) developed an index of retail saturation to ascertain
the attractiveness of a potential market. This index compares the level
of expenditure captured by the retailer in the concerned catchment
area. It therefore involves delimiting upstream the trade area of each
grocery pickup and quantifying it. The grocery pickups, by denition,
capture a mobile population. Although Douard et al. (2015) demon-
strates that the trade area of a drive-in pickup is closer to the point-of-
sale area, this index cannot be used quite accurately. Measures con-
sidering the distance between grocery pickups are very promising fu-
ture research.
Furthermore, this study is limited to the specic French context:
labor costs, regulations, networks territorial coverage and the lack of
willingness to pay for home delivery has contributed signicantly to the
development of grocery pickups and should be conducted in other
countries, especially in the US with the development of Walmart gro-
cery pickup. However, it is clear that home delivery is experiencing a
resurgence of interest. Several months ago, Amazon launched a grocery
service in France. For a few months, in London, Fresh Amazon allows
consumers to be delivered seven days a week, from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m.
The website proposes a range of 130,000 products. This new service,
and potentially its success, oers a fast delivery (one hour following the
order) for a delivery fee (from 20 euros). This innovation could lead
retailers to focus our future attention on: 1) the value of home delivery
152
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39 (2017) 145153
service (highest service to customers) compared to the grocery pickup
service; 2) the increase of fresh products available from the grocery
pickup range. And Amazon bought recently Whole Foods, a US grocery
retail chain specialized in organic product.
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