Who seeks variety? Profiles and behaviors of consumers with varying brand choice concentration

Whether a household’s observed variety seeking — captured by brand choice concentration across purchases within a category— primarily reflects category-specific conditions or a stable, cross-category behavioral tendency is still an unresolved question. Using panel data on grocery purchases from approximately 39,000 households, we relate brand choice concentration levels across 131 FMCG categories. Our findings reveal consistently positive correlations in brand choice concentration across categories, which persist after controlling for shopping frequency. Households exhibiting greater variety seeking show distinct profiles: they buy more on deal, prefer smaller and more premium national brands, are less prone to choose private labels. In terms of socio-demographics, they are larger, have higher incomes, and their main shopper is more likely female. Rather than treating variety seeking as a category-specific phenomenon, retail marketing should realize that, irrespective of the category, some shoppers consistently show a stronger propensity to explore the assortment while others are more inclined to concentrate their choices on a narrower set of brands.