Placing Food Items By The Checkouts Can Decrease Purchase

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 11 Sep 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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A study has found that the location of fruit and chocolate items in a canteen can influence purchase of those items; but not in the direction that researchers predicted.

Katarzyna Chapman and Professor Jane Ogden of the University of Surrey are presenting the findings of their study today, Friday 11 September, at the British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference at Aston University.

The researchers changed the location of fruit and chocolate in the university canteen each week over three weeks so that either chocolate or fruit was positioned either close to the tills or to one side of the canteen.

Katarzyna Chapman said: "We would have expected sales of products to have gone up when they were found by the checkout - as people may have purchased them on impulse. However, we actually found the opposite result."

When items were positioned closer to the tills (chocolate in weeks 1 and 3; fruit in week 2), their sales went down, whereas purchases of the items were higher when they were at the side of the canteen (fruit in weeks 1 and 3, chocolate in week 2).

"The efficient checkout system in the canteen with short queue times may have reduced the time to make impulse selections in this canteen," Katarzyna continued.

The researchers also interviewed 180 customers about their reasons for food choices. It was found that most people bought fruit intentionally but bought chocolate on impulse.

Katarzyna said: "This implication of this study in terms of encouraging healthy food choices is that fruit should be positioned in a prominent place within a canteen's environment, so that those people seeking to buy it intentionally can do so easily."

The British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology annual conference is taking place at Aston University, Birmingham from 9 - 11 September 2009.

Source
British Psychological Society

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