Green Marketing: Customers' Perspective and Recommendations. VkusVill Case

This paper focuses on the case of VkusVill, a Russian food retailer, in particular, its green initiatives and the intentions, attitudes and motivations of its customers regarding VkusVill’s green practices through the use of in-depth interviews of the customers of VkusVill, which are interpreted with the help of MAXQDA, a software for visualizing and interpreting qualitative and mixed methods data. Moreover, using the concept of the theory of planned behavior, introduced in 1985 by Icek Ajzen, and a reflective thematic analysis, outlined by Victoria Clarke and Virginia Braun in 2006, for the interpretation of in-depth interviews, concrete recommendations for increasing the overall awareness of VkusVill’s green practices and enhancing the involvement of those customers who already use VkusVill’s green practices are formed in the following areas of improvement: location, a sense of community, lack of transparency, educational activities and eco-related partnerships with organizations, in-store promotion and online promotion. The recommendations are formed based on the opinions of customers and the factors that stand behind their green habits identified via the theory of planned behavior. As a part of the analysis, customer segments are formed based on green consumer behavior factors they tend to show through the course of in-depth interviews, which are also reflected in the recommendations.