Preferences of men and women in the Czech Republic when shopping for food

Buying behavior of men and women shows considerable differences. The individual stages of purchase decision-making process lead to convergence or conversely deepening of these differences. The paper provides results of analysis of chosen aspects of consumer behavior of men and women in the Czech Republic. It focuses on the grocery shopping in small-sized shops. Due to the complexity of the problem the research could not cover all aspects associated with this topic. It identifies who in a household is responsible for grocery shopping, how often and in what quantity of purchases. The paper examines to what extent is a purchase planned and by what a consumer is usually stimulated to an impulsive shopping. Further, it describes factors leading to a choice of shopping place and to a satisfaction with shopping conditions. The primary data was collected through a method of in-depth interviews conducted from January to March 2011 on a sample of 56 respondents in the three smaller stores in the Moravské Budějovice, and via questionnaire survey which took place in all regions of the Czech Republic (n = 5809) among respondents aged 12+. The results confirmed we can observe differences in shopping behavior of women and man, even though the importance of various factors taken into account when making a choice of a particular food product show significant differences from the gender perspective (none of the analyzed factors was found to have higher statistical significance than weak, p < .05). The qualitative research, however, revealed that women tend to make more frequent purchases and keep a certain level of supplies at home, while men tend to leave shopping till it becomes necessary, they are more likely to stick to their shopping list and more loyal to their favorite products. Women are more flexible when in need to replace a missing product with its substitute. The proportion of impulsively purchased items in a shopping basket is higher for women than for men. The findings should help in particular small-scale operators of stores.