Market Research on Waitrose: Customer Perceptions of Organic and Free-Range Products

Running head: MARKET RESEARCH
MARKET RESEARCH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1MARKET RESEARCH
Executive Summary
The present report provides an overview of the marketing research project on the Waitrose
Company. This report has been intended to the marketing managers of the Waitrose as they plays
vital role in identifying the needs of customers and develop products in order to satisfy their
customers through the exchange procedure. Waitrose organization is a British supermarket chain
that forms food retail partition of the UK’s biggest workers owned retailer. This enterprise has
5.1% share in the market which makes them sixth- biggest grocery retailer in Britain. This report
highlights on the position of this company in the UK market and their key success benchmarks.
Furthermore, the background of this enterprise analysis has been done using the secondary data
sources. The research objectives addressed in this report is based on the perceptions of their
customers vary between free range and organic products sold and how this impact their purchase
intention. Apart from this, additional analysis on this research has been done in this report using
the SPSS dataset. The next section of this study elucidates on the implications of customer’s
perceptions about their product on marketing activities. In the last section, the critiques of the
research design and the questionnaire is also reflected in this report.

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Table of Contents
Answer 2..........................................................................................................................................4
Background of Waitrose..............................................................................................................4
Answer 3..........................................................................................................................................6
Research Question...........................................................................................................................6
Result and interpretation..................................................................................................................6
Descriptive Analysis....................................................................................................................6
Customer insights......................................................................................................................11
Testing association between past purchase frequency of organic produce and customer’s
gender........................................................................................................................................15
Testing association between past purchase frequency of free range produce and customer’s
gender........................................................................................................................................16
Testing Association between past purchase frequency of organic and free range produce......18
Correlation between participation intentions to purchase organic and free-range product.......20
Correlation between Participant’s views on organic produce...................................................21
Correlation between Participant’s views on free-range produce...............................................22
Marketing implications..................................................................................................................23
Critiques of the research design and study questionnaire..............................................................24
References......................................................................................................................................27

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Answer 2
Background of Waitrose
Waitrose has been known as the main supermarket chain to sell huge range of organic
and free range of products to the customers. This organization was also identified as Best Food
and Grocery Retailer in the Verdict Consumer Satisfaction Awards in the year 2016. Waitrose
has near about 352 branches including 30 little convenience stores across the UK, Scotland,
Wales and England. In the year 2015, this company recorded 5.1% share of the UK market,
which ranked them in the sixth position in the supermarket. The aim of this company is to merge
ease of the supermarket with specialist and facility of high quality shop. This enterprise is mainly
known for their differentiation approach that aims upper market with widespread variety of fresh
product and quality (Makadok and Ross 2013). They even offer value promise for making sure
that their clients gets best value for money when shopping at their store. Besides this, they have
high status for retailing high quality product but this led them to awareness of being costly.
The present logo of this firm was designed by Monotype Interbrand as well as Imaging.
Advertising for this enterprise generally emphasizes chain’s selling points. The recent marketing
by Waitrose has endeavored to depict the chain highly ethical than several other supermarkets.
They also introduced premium food brand named as ‘Waitrose 1’ in the year 2016. This brand
mainly offers best of Waitrose food items. In addition, another brand of this company is ‘Heston’
that includes goods innovated by Heston (UKEssays 2018). This supermarket also introduced
their loyalty card scheme known as “ my Waitrose”, which varied from other loyalty card such
as Tesco Clubcard, Nectar etc. This in turn gives their cardholders admittance to huge
competitions and also permits them to gather points. This supermarket also has foundation,

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which provides funds for employee’s facilities, health services and education. Some of the major
competitors of Waitrose are Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury and so on, those who also
target the upper section of market. This supermarket also performs huge range of conducts in
order to uphold their green image that involves Bag for Life , Environmental Report etc.
This company captured near about 5.3% of the grocery market in the UK over the last
few years. Their share in the UK market has increased from 3.17% to 3.7% against huge
competition from biggest supermarket chains. This increase in their market share, rise in sales
growth and built consumers loyalty has been attained by this company through their adoption of
strategic design as well as advertising creativity (Wells-Burr 2016). However, one of the key
success benchmarks of Waitrose has been their growth in market share in this nation.
This company attains higher position in the UK market similar to that of other
mainstream players including Tesco, Morrison’s, Asda etc. In fact, they presently ramped up
campaign relating to the Price Match in which they promise to match with Tesco. This
Supermarket attained huge success in the UK market due to launch of their essentials range,
customer service, ethical sourcing and acquisition of store. In addition, the segmentation in the
UK market also permits this enterprise to identify different kinds of purchasers who allocate
homogenous requirements as well as behaviors, which in turn helped them to attain upper
position in the market. In the present years, this firm is considered as the fastest developing
supermarket in the UK marketplace. Moreover, their positioning in the UK market leverages the
growth in their retail internet sales. From the positioning map, it can be viewed that this
Supermarket has been placed moderately higher price lines as well as quality, featuring
segmentation in relation to high revenue gainers.