How
reusable bags change shopping decisions
From: ClickGreen Staff, ClickGreen, More from this Affiliate
Taking reusable bags to the supermarket can help identify the
environmentally friendly shopper but a new study has now discovered the
products they are more likely to buy.
New research in the Journal of Marketing reveals unsurprisingly
that shoppers who take their own bags are more likely to purchase organic food
– and more surprisingly, junk food as well.
The study describes: "Grocery store shoppers who bring their
own bags are more likely to purchase healthy food. But those same shoppers
often feel virtuous, because they are acting in an environmentally responsible
way.
“That feeling easily persuades them that, because they are being good to the environment, they should treat themselves to cookies or potato chips or some other product with lots of fat, salt, or sugar."
The study by Uma R. Karmarkar of Harvard University and Bryan
Bollinger of Duke University is one of the first to demonstrate that bringing
reusable grocery bags causes significant changes in food purchasing behaviour.
The authors collected loyalty cardholder data from a single
location of a major grocery chain in California between May 2005 and March
2007.
They compared the same shoppers on trips for which they brought their own
bags with trips for which they did not.
Participants were also recruited online from a national pool and
were randomly assigned one of two situations: bringing their own bags or not
bringing their own bags.
Depending on the situation, participants were
presented with a certain scenario and a floorplan of the grocery store and were
asked to list the ten items they were most likely to purchase on the trip.
The researchers found that when shoppers brought their own bags,
they were more likely to purchase organic foods. At the same time, bringing
one's own bags also increased the likelihood that the shopper would purchase
junk food.
And both results were slightly less likely when the shopper had
young children: parents have to balance their own purchasing preferences with
competing motivations arising from their role as parents.
Continue reading at ENN affiliate, ClickGreen.