Dynamics of Repeat Buying for Packaged Food Products

Buyers of consumer non-durables tend to buy several brands of a product category in the course of a year, though a few are exclusive buyers of particular brands. The present research investigated the dynamics of successive repeat-buying and penetration levels of groups of brands belonging to similar levels of brand differentiation. It examined the probability of buying brands belonging to the same level of differentiation on successive shopping occasions. Consumer panel data for 80 consumers for weekly purchases of eight product categories over a period of 16 weeks were analysed. Since the number of exclusive buyers of a brand decreases as the duration of sales increases, we hypothesized a decrease in the probability of sequential repeat-buying of brands belonging to the same level of brand differentiation with increases in the number of successive shopping occasions. Similar analysis was undertaken to examine the penetration level of groups of similar brands, which were expected to increase with the period chosen for analysis. Two equations, constructed to describe the dynamics of repeat-buying for groups of brands, were applied to the description of the dynamics of repeat-buying and penetration level of particular brands. The results suggest several managerial applications including the estimation of the proportion of sequential repeat buyers and non-repeat buyers during the product shopping cycle.