Smart Shopping Carts to Increase Healthier Food Purchase: A Conjoint Experiment

Abstract

Shopping carts, in general, should be suitable for carrying smart technology in the retail store environment. Also, a smart shopping cart can present verbal motivating stimuli to increase healthier food purchases. A conjoint experiment was used to test with a hypothetical purchasing task for young consumers (n=91) the potential of motivating stimulus on smart shopping carts to influence healthier purchases when buying frozen pizza. The results show a positive impact for all stimuli stemming from the smart shopping cart, three of which were health-based. This shows that stimuli revealing dynamic and personalized data through smart technology in a physical grocery retail setting have the potential to outperform traditional brand statements. Our conjoint experiment increased young consumers’ likelihood of choosing a healthier frozen pizza. This result demonstrates that verbal stimuli on smart shopping carts can function as motivating augmentals on young adult consumers’ healthier food p urchases and are in line with the market positioning and customer-service focus of many retailers and brands today, emphasizing a social marketing standing.