Measuring Behavior 2005: Kuipers

Influence of assortment organisation on perception and choice of organic food products

T. Kuipers

Marketing and Consumer Behaviour group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

The way assortments in retail outlets are organized affects consumer perceptions of the assortment and purchase behavior from that assortment. Previous research has largely relied on consumer self-report measures on assortment perceptions of price, variety and quality, but the underlying mechanism is still to be unravelled. We augment this research with observational data (head movements) on how assortment organisation affects consumers ‘scanning’ of the assortment and particularly the extent to which they make direct and indirect comparisons between the items in the assortment.

Our application is in the field of the organisation of organic assortment in retail outlets. We explore how two different assortment organisations affect:

Consumer scanning of the assortment.
Their perceptions of the total assortment in terms of quality, variety and price.
Their purchase behavior from the assortment.

In a between subjects design, half of the respondents were shown an assortment of vegetables, eggs and potatoes organized by organic versus non-organic food. The other half of the respondents saw an assortment where the products were organized by product types with organic and non-organic variants adjacent. Organic and non-organic food product items were physically identical and only varied in the information that accompanied them (organic versus non-organic). Respondents, equipped with a head movement camera chose from the assortment and subsequently provided self-report data through a questionnaire. Head movements were analyzed and quantified with The Observer^® 5.0 (Noldus Information Technology bv, Wageningen).

The results show that observation of head movements is a more precise measure for direct comparisons than questionnaires.

More direct comparisons lead to a improved variety perception of the assortment. A better quality and/or a lower variety perception leads to a higher percentage of organic food purchases.

Other results show that an organization of organic food products directly next to non-organic food products leads to an improved quality perception of organic food products and an enhanced attitude towards the assortment organization than an organization of organic food products directly next to the same type of non-organic food product.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.