Impact of Consumer Preferences on Food Chain Choice: An empirical study of consumers in Bratislava

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to highlight the use of multiple criteria evaluation methods as a tool for the rating and selection of retail chains from the customers and suppliers perspective. We provide an assessment on the attractiveness of active retail chains on the Slovak market through multiple criteria methods used for the analysis of customer preferences. An analysis was conducted on a sample of consumers in Bratislava involving 11 389 respondents interviewed. The multi-attribute decision-making methods PROMETHEE II and V were used to assess the variants. In the first part of analysis the collected data uncover customers’ preferences in the selection of retail chains. Findings suggest a ranking of evaluated retail chains and thus of customer preferences. Based on the obtained evaluation, in the second part of analysis, a set of retail chains was chosen under constraints concerning the effectiveness of advertising, market share of sales and the maximum number of chosen retail chains and a binary linear programming model was formulated as an outcome. Proposed procedure aims to assist the decision maker in selecting which retail chain to choose for distribution of supplier’s products, and thus maximize benefits, which will result from consumer preferences and service satisfaction level in retail chain.

Keywords

• Consumer preferences
• food chain
• store choice
• multi-attribute decision-making problems
• binary linear programming models