Marketing literature has identified task definitions as one of the important situational influences. However, existing definitions of planned and emergency shopping situations are driven from practitioners’ perspective and suffer from operationalisation issues. In this study, we make an attempt to understand and define the concept of task definition from customers’ perspective. Based on the thematic analysis of data collected through qualitative interviews, we identify the elements of task definitions which customers consider salient in distinguishing between different task definitions. We conclude, based on the additional analysis of comparison of these elements across different product categories, that it is also important to consider the finer point in elements across two product categories for same type of shopping trip.