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Does self-checkout impact grocery store loyalty?

Self-checkout systems, despite their advantages in terms of speed, ease of use, and cost reduction, can result in lower customer loyalty compared to regular checkout systems, especially when the number of purchased items is relatively high (e.g., more than 15 items)

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In an effort to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction, retailers have implemented self-checkouts in stores across the country. They have become increasingly popular, but some brands like Walmart are removing self-checkouts in some locations while adding more in others. There are many advantages and disadvantages of self-checkout for both the customer and the retailer, but little formal research has investigated the impact of self-checkout on customers’ shopping experience. This led researchers from Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business to look at how self-checkout systems in grocery stores influence customer loyalty compared to regular checkout systems.

Yanliu Huang, PhD, an associate professor in LeBow, and a former Drexel graduate student, Farhana Nusrat, PhD, now an assistant professor at the University of San Diego, conducted five studies that showed customers are more likely to remain loyal to the grocery store when using regular checkout service. They found loyalty is demonstrated by an increased likelihood of returning to the store in the future.

These findings and the full study were recently published in the Journal of Business Research.

Huang and Nusrat established that the perceived ease of checkout and a sense of entitlement played a role in explaining the effect of loyalty. They also noted the number of items purchased during the shopping trip also affects how the type of checkout influences customer loyalty.

“Our findings indicate that self-checkout systems, despite their advantages in terms of speed, ease of use, and cost reduction, can result in lower customer loyalty compared to regular checkout systems, especially when the number of purchased items is relatively high (e.g., more than 15 items),” said Huang.

Specifically, they noted that the perceived saved effort during the checkout process and the customers’ sense of entitlement explain the effect of checkout type on customer loyalty. Extra effort required to checkout and bag purchases and the expectation of being served by the store were negative consequences of self-checkout and decreased loyalty to the store. But, when shoppers viewed the extra effort in self-checkout as a rewarding experience, their store loyalty matched that of regular checkout shoppers.

Huang and Nusrat’s research is a compilation of five studies of data collection through crowdsourcing platforms. In the first study, they surveyed people who reported grocery shopping within the last seven days about their most recent grocery shopping trip and were asked to indicate which checkout method they used, followed by customer loyalty questions. This study demonstrated that regular checkout customers reported higher loyalty to the store than self-checkout customers.

In the second, third and fourth studies, Huang and Nusrat used hypothetical scenarios to have participants imagine that they took a grocery shopping trip to a supermarket and made purchases. In the regular checkout condition, participants were told that a cashier helped them at the checkout counter with the scanning and bagging process. In the self-checkout condition, participants were told that they scanned and bagged all items themselves at checkout. Then participants were shown a screen displaying the price of some items and the savings made.

In all five studies loyalty to the grocery store was measured, as well as perceived saved effort during the checkout process and customer entitlement in the third study. Results from the third study showed that customers’ perceived saved effort during the checkout process and their sense of entitlement, explain the effects of the checkout system on customer loyalty to the store. While the fourth study demonstrated that the effect of checkout type on customer loyalty will most likely happen for a high basket size, when the number of items purchased during a shopping trip is greater than 15.

In the fifth study – a field study – Huang and Nusrat introduced an intervention by encouraging participants to associate the extra effort involved in self-checkout with rewards. Specifically, in the first stage, participants who indicated that they would visit a supermarket to grocery shop within the next five days took part in the study and were randomly assigned to read either a neutral passage about trees or a passage about how self-completing a task that requires effort can make them feel accomplished and rewarded. The purpose of this intervention was to influence participants’ perception of self-checkout, making them think of the extra effort involved in self-checkout as rewarding and satisfactory. Participants were then asked to go grocery shopping within the next five days, upload the receipt of that shopping trip, indicate which checkout method they used, and answer store loyalty questions.

“We found that when customers were encouraged to think of the extra effort involved in self-checkout as a rewarding experience, their perceived loyalty to the store was similar to those of regular checkout shoppers,” said Huang.

Haung and Nusrat noted this research can help inform retailers on whether they should install or remove self-checkout systems, and how to better manage the self-checkout systems to ensure positive customer experiences.

“For example, to overcome the negative impacts of using self-checkout on customer loyalty, retailers should attempt to make the self-checkout experience more rewarding, like encouraging shoppers to think the extra effort involved in self-checkout is a rewarding experience,” said Huang. “Doing so offers retailers a solution to improve their self-checkout customers’ overall shopping experience, which in turn will facilitate higher customer loyalty.”

The researchers added that there is opportunity for similar studies to broaden the focus on other retail settings, including clothing, home improvement and luxury stores, as well as other forms of self-service technologies, such as self-checkout with RFID, scan-and-go apps, smart carts and self-service kiosks to measure customers’ experience.

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Women more likely to choose wine with feminine labels

The more strongly the participants identified with other women, a phenomenon called “in-group identification,” the greater this effect was. A feminine label also influenced their expectation that they would like the wine better.

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To appeal to the majority of consumers, winemakers may want to pay as much attention to what’s on the bottle as what’s in it.

A three-part experimental study led by Washington State University researchers found that women were more inclined to purchase wine that had labels with feminine gender cues. The more strongly the participants identified with other women, a phenomenon called “in-group identification,” the greater this effect was. A feminine label also influenced their expectation that they would like the wine better.

With women representing 59% of U.S. wine consumers, the male-dominated field of winemaking might want to pay attention to the perceptions of this understudied group, said Ruiying Cai, lead author of the paper in the International Journal of Hospitality Management.  

“When you look at the market segments, women are actually purchasing a lot of wine. They are a large group,” said Cai, an assistant professor with WSU’s Carson College of Business. “We found that feminine cues speak to women consumers. They have more favorable attitudes toward the label and the wine itself. They were also expecting their overall sensory experience to be better, and they were more likely to purchase the wine.”

Gender cues often rely on stereotypes, and in initial tests for this research, a group of 90 women rated wine labels as more masculine when they featured rugged animals like wolves and stags as well as portraits of men. They designated labels as feminine that had cute animals, flowers and female portraits. Labels with castles and bunches of grapes were seen as neutral.

In two online experiments, a total of 324 women were shown fictitious wines with labels designed with these gendered cues. The participants showed higher intention to buy wines with a feminine label, such as a woman holding flowers, as opposed to a wine with a masculine label, such as a bulldog in a spiked collar. When asked about the expected sensory experience, they rated their liking of every sensory aspect higher, including the color, taste, aroma and aftertaste.

The participant’s level of wine expertise moderated their taste expectations but surprisingly, not their purchase intentions.

“Whether they were knowledgeable or less knowledgeable about wine, when they saw those feminine cues, they had a higher intention to buy the wine. The gender cue influence was so strong, it trumped the effect of that knowledge,” said co-author Christina Chi, a professor at WSU’s Carson College of Business.

A third experiment with another set of 138 women involved a taste test—also with a surprising finding. Researchers gave bottles of the same red wine with one of the gendered labels. More women who tasted the feminine-labeled wine ranked it higher in fruit flavors such as red current and blueberry than those who tasted the same wine with a masculine-cued label—and despite the fact those flavors were not dominant components in that particular wine. Women connected more mineral flavors with the masculine-labelled wine.

However, the participants who tasted the feminine-labelled wine reported liking it less than the women who tasted the masculine-labelled wines. The authors said this could be a result of the incongruence between the expected flavor influenced by the feminine label and the actual taste of the wine sample, which had a medium body, tannin and alcohol level.

Few studies have focused on the perceptions of women wine consumers in a field where 82% of the winemakers are men. That lack of perspective is very apparent on wine aisles, said Chi, noting that many vintners seem to favor masculine imagery like stallions, bulls and roosters–and one brand even features a prisoner in a jail cell.

“When designing the labels, winemakers should involve more women in the process, and it’s highly advisable to pilot test the labels among consumers for gender cues,” she said.

In addition to Cai and Chi, co-authors on this study include recent WSU graduate Demi Deng now at Auburn University and Robert Harrington of WSU.

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The tourism industry’s path to success lies in ethical labor practices

“With customers becoming more socially conscious, it is both a moral obligation and a smart business move for the sector to tackle these deep-rooted issues before it’s too late.”

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Addressing poor working conditions and human rights violations in the tourism sector isn’t just ethical – it also makes good business sense, according to a report by researchers at the University of Surrey. 

Commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and IUF, the report examines the S in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) trends, risks, and opportunities in the travel and tourism industry, which employs 290 million people worldwide. Despite this reach, workers in the sector, especially the sector’s most vulnerable workers – women, migrants and those in undeclared roles – are at high risk of exploitation. 

Dr Anke Winchenbach, lead author from Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, said: “Sadly, the travel and tourism sector continues to be plagued by poor pay, unsafe working conditions, and, in some cases, modern slavery. Enforcement is often weak or absent, even where laws exist to protect workers. 

“With ESG reporting increasingly becoming mandatory, businesses and governments who ignore social risks will not only face legal compliance issues but also lose out on attracting talent and business and investment opportunities in the future.  

“With customers becoming more socially conscious, it is both a moral obligation and a smart business move for the sector to tackle these deep-rooted issues before it’s too late.” 

The report offers seven recommendations to help businesses, governments, investors, and unions create a more sustainable future for the industry: 

  • Set up partnerships that include different groups and have clear rules, laws, and ways to ensure they’re followed. 
  • Improve access to unions and trusted experts in labour and human rights. 
  • Carry out assessments to identify the most important labour and human rights issues. 
  • Create policies with clear goals to improve working conditions. 
  • Use reliable measurements, involve employees in gathering data, and be open about the results. 
  • Consider both the direct impacts and those in the supply chain. 
  • Share progress openly to build trust and accountability. 

The report is based on a comprehensive literature review and 29 in-depth interviews with industry leaders, global trade unions, and financial experts. The research team also analysed four key frameworks – European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), UN Tourism’s Statistical Framework, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria, and the World Benchmarking Alliance, to identify the most pressing risks and opportunities for improving labour and human rights in travel and tourism. 

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Buy your groceries online? Watch out for this food labeling gap

The absence of accessible food labeling has tangible consequences for public health.

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Picture this: You’re shopping online for this week’s groceries. You try to pick healthy options based on the information provided by the online retailer. You can tell that the products you’re choosing are organic, non-GMO, or Fair Trade Certified. But in many cases, you can’t find the nutrition facts, ingredient list, or even a list of allergens.

A new study of online grocery retailers shows this problem is pervasive, to the detriment of public health and safety in the US The study, led by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and published in Public Health Nutrition, shows a lack of present, accessible, and legible information about the food consumers buy, while marketing claims are still prominent. The absence of accessible food labeling has tangible consequences for public health, said Julia Sharib, first author on the study and manager of research and communications for the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School.

“The government has clearly intended that you should be able to know certain things about your food,” said Sean Cash, Bergstrom Foundation Professor in Global Nutrition at the Friedman School and senior author on the study. “The way we’ve regulated that in the United States is to put that information on the packaging. But that hasn’t carried over to online spaces very well.”

A Lack of Information

Cash and researchers at the Friedman School and New York University (NYU) first identified the lack of accessible food labeling among online retailers in a 2022 pilot study of 10 food products across nine online grocery retailers. That study found that information required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about food, such as nutrition facts, an ingredient list, and an allergen list were often absent, and were less present than marketing claims.

The lack of information accessible in online settings reveals a “major gap” in federal regulations, Cash said. While food manufacturers are required by the FDA to present certain information on food packaging, online grocery retailers aren’t required to reproduce that information on their websites. That means that consumers won’t necessarily be able to access information about calories, nutrition content, or allergens when buying their groceries online.

Since 2022, there were some reasons to think that retailers would step up their game. First, online grocery shopping is here to stay—recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) indicates that 20% of Americans buy their groceries online, while over 80% have done so in the past three years. The trend has been aided by a drop in online food prices relative to in-store shopping: Prices are now roughly comparable between in-store and online groceries, which hasn’t always been the case.

Second, online food retailers could have responded to the growing market by deciding to get out ahead of any regulatory action. “We thought there might be practical changes in what food retailers are doing,” Cash said.

There have been signs that the FDA is considering regulatory action, too. In 2023, the agency issued a request for information on food labeling in online grocery shopping, citing previous research from Cash and his colleagues as one basis of their request. “We, and others, have been pushing for change,” Cash said. But the agency has not yet taken regulatory action to close the gap.

The new study, with co-authors Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at the NYU School of Global Public Health, and Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute and Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School, gives a more complete look at the issue and analyzes 60 food products across 10 different online grocery retailers. The food products were chosen to represent the typical range of food commonly sold at supermarkets, based on a formula used by the USDA for administering food assistance programs. The results show the trend has persisted: Each FDA-required label was present, accessible, and legible for just 35.1% of products.

Marketing claims and labels, though, were present for 83.7% of products. That’s what Cash finds unpalatable. “It’s far easier to find marketing that’s trying to sell you the food rather than the information that our society agrees should be there to tell you about your food,” he said.

“We saw many cases in which a nutrition facts label, for example, was only accessible after scrolling through a dozen marketing images, essentially forcing any consumers seeking that label to interact with marketing language,” Sharib said.

Making Shopping More Accessible

Studies show that population health is better when ingredient lists and nutrition facts are provided. When consumers can’t access that information, retailers “run the risk of perpetuating consumer’s incorrect understandings about the healthfulness of the foods they buy,” Sharib said.

Additionally, plenty of Americans follow specific diets meant to control certain health conditions and may be looking for foods with a specific nutrition content. “For example, if you’re worried about sodium intake because you have hypertension, food labeling is something that can be a very important part of your life,” Cash said. For people with specific allergies, a lack of food labeling can be dangerous, too.

The best way consumers can get the FDA-required information is to visit the websites of the food manufacturers themselves, Cash said. On those sites, nutrition information and ingredient lists are much more likely to be present and legible. Cash cautions that food labeling found in product reviews can be helpful, but may also be out of date or inaccurate.

And ultimately, the onus should be on regulators and the industry to provide important information to consumers, Cash said. “Putting the burden on consumers is not what we should be doing,” he said.

There are a few solutions: First, regulators or congress could pass new laws or issue new regulations to compel food retailers to make food labeling accessible. Second, the U.S. government could help online retailers to make food labeling accessible by providing a public database of nutrition, ingredient, and allergen information of packaged foods, Cash said.

“We simply cannot continue to let this sector grow without modern regulation,” Sharib said.

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