influence of assortment organization on product compaisons and choice

Summary

This paper was presented at the Measuring Behaviour 2005 Congres, August 30 to September 2, 2005, Wageningen. Organization of product assortments in retail outlets affects consumer perceptions of the assortment and their purchase behavior. Previous research has largely relied on consumer self-report measures and observed purchase behavior, but the underlying mechanism is still to be unraveled. We use observational data (head movements) to examine how the organization affects consumers’ “scanning” and particularly the extent to which they make direct comparisons between the items in the assortment. This paper explores how structuring assortments according to natural categories or according to a less salient attribute affects (1) consumer scanning behavior, (2) their assortment perceptions, and (3) purchase behavior from the assortment. Results show that head movements are a more precise measure for direct product comparisons than self-reported measures. Furthermore, organization of organic food products directly next to the non-organic variants leads to more direct comparisons and fewer purchases of organic products, but improved evaluations of assortment organization.