Silver Shoppers: designing a better supermarket service for the older consumer

It has been forecasted that the number of old people in the UK is projected to increase to 15.9 million over the 25 years period and China will have over 440 million people aged over 60. As a result of this substantial demographic shift, many researchers have highlighted that the elderly consumer segment, which has been considered as less profitable in the market in the past, is now a valuable and vital consumer segment for retailers. The UK retail market has been mainly monopolised by major multiple retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury, ASDA and Marks and Spencer in recent years. Due to the increasing competitive pressure from the multiple retailers, the local retail shops, which are easier to access than the multiple retailers, offer a smaller range of products and tend to be popular among older people, are closing down rapidly. This is supported by the fact that at least 577 supermarket stores have been approved across the United Kingdom over the past 2 years and 12,000 local retail shops have closed down during this period of time (BBC, 2010). As elderly consumers traditionally rely on local retail stores for their grocery needs and as a means to socialise, the decline of small local grocers has led to older people feeling disadvantaged as the number of stores for them to shop has been reduced (Szmigin et al., 2003). Given the influence of multiple retailers in the retail industry, it is important to investigate the problem areas that elderly consumers face within the supermarket environment. Within the globalised retail industry, China is regarded as the biggest and most profitable overseas market. Since cultural background plays a significant role in shaping consumers' shopping behaviour (Wang et al, 2010), consumers from different countries might have diverse requirements and needs within a supermarket service environment. Several major international firms, such as Tesco (UK), Wal-Mart (US) and Carrefour (France), are attempting to provide better services to both China and their home markets. Thus, it is important to explore the differences between the UK and Chinese consumers' shopping behaviour and experience, in turn, to discover possibilities for developing universal design solutions to improve the supermarket service and environment for elderly consumers in the UK and China.
This project aims to fill this gap in knowledge so that better provisions can be offered to this growing market segment. In order to achieve the research aim, a literature review, focus groups, an ethnographic user studies and co-design workshops will be employed as research methods. 1) The literature review focuses on an exploration of the key factors that influence the elderly consumers' shopping behaviour and experience from previous studies in ageing research, elderly consumers, design for ageing and retail service design areas. 2) The focus group exercises will help to explore key issues associated with the UK and Chinese elderly consumer's shopping behaviour and experience, within their respective cultural contexts, by evaluating identified key factors from the literature reviews. 3) The ethnographic user study, which includes Cultural Probes - an elderly consumer's shopping experience information-gathering package, video-based direct observation, in-depth interviews and a questionnaire survey, will be conducted to investigate the difficulties and challenges that the UK and Chinese elderly consumers currently face during their shopping process. Finally, 4) the co-design workshops will aim to promote better product and service design ideas, concepts and prototypes for improving the supermarket environment and service for the elderly consumers in the UK and Chain. In order to produce high quality design outputs, design staff and students from the leading design schools - Brunel University (UK) and Tsinghua University (China)- will be responsible for the new product design and development in the project.

Due to the remarkable growth of an aging population cross the world, the elderly consumer is regarded as a vital segmentation by the retail industry. Results of the proposed project will have a wide ranging impact on service design and delivery, social issues, cultural patterns of consumption and the supermarket environment in general. The chief beneficiaries of this project will be: 1) the UK and Chinese elderly consumers who use the current supermarket service within their respective countries, 2) the UK and Chinese retailers who could improve their service to this segment of the population, 3) the UK and China government service sectors which focus on supporting the senior citizens, 4) product and service designers and companies who target the elderly people as the end-users, and 5) the wider public, in the UK, China and worldwide, who will benefit, as potential 'elderly people', in 'quality of life' terms from better design in many aspects of public and private services.
This project will establish a communication platform for the elderly consumers to present and emphasise their current needs with regards to supermarket services. Once this project has been completed, the empirical research results will present suggestions, recommendations and practical product and service design solutions. Through this process desirable positive changes to the elderly consumers' experience will be achieved. This project will generate significant attention from all areas of society from the perspective of creating increased fulfillment and independence in an ageing population. There will be increased value from both a community aspect and a financial aspect (for example, reducing the strain on social services).
This project will support retailers in developing a better understanding of the UK and Chinese older shoppers' current shopping experience and also help to improve their service to this segment of the industry, informed by innovative research. New products and service that will be produced from the project will provide practical options for the retailers to improve the store environment, objects in store and customer service details for the older consumers. The new products and service could be beneficial to the younger customers as well.
This project will also provide a window for the UK and Chinese government service sector officers to understand the current living situations of their older residents. The results of this project will demonstrate the difficulties and challenges that the older citizens face and in turn producing practical suggestions for improvement. These outcomes will provide inspirations and insights for the government officers to blueprint a future plan of social care and service system for the older residents in the UK and China.
For product and service designers and companies who target older people as the end-user, this project will provide useful insights for them in the development of better products and services for the older population. Engagement with this project will also support the designers in improving their design research skills.
This project will generate a long-term impact on the younger generations to project and think about their future lives and start working together to help and support the current older generation so as to develop a better social care culture for the ageing population in the community.
Research data and results generated from this project will be presented and disseminated in an accessible way to a wide variety of research users, in order to maximise impact. 1) Briefing papers for all stakeholders involved in the project; 2) project website, a variety of social media and a telephone-based 'feedback box'; 3) multiple data presentation formats for the different research users, such as elderly consumers, primary or high school students, supermarket staff and local residents; and 4) dissemination of research results in both English and Chinese languages.