The influence of smart shopping carts on the healthier food choices of young consumers

Abstract

Shopping carts can be designed to accommodate and integrate smart devices seamlessly within a retail setting, allowing for enhanced connectivity and functionality. Moreover, smart devices on a smart shopping cart can provide verbal motivating stimuli to enhance consumers’ purchasing of healthy food. A conjoint experiment was conducted to examine the potential influence of motivating stimuli on smart shopping carts to encourage healthier purchases among young consumers. The study involved 91 participants and presented them with a hypothetical purchasing task related to buying frozen pizza. The findings indicate a positive impact associated with all stimuli originating from the smart shopping cart, with three focused explicitly on health-related aspects. Our results suggest that the presentation of real-time, dynamic, and personalized data through smart technology within a physical grocery retail setting holds the potential to surpass the effectiveness of traditional firm-based and static brand statements. Our study made young customers more likely to select a healthier frozen pizza. This finding supports the market positioning and customer-service focus of many retailers and brands today. It shows how verbal stimuli on smart shopping carts can serve as motivating augmentals on young adult consumers’ purchases of healthier foods. The managerial implications for grocery retailers contributing positively to their customers’ overall well-being and life satisfaction are discussed, as well as limitations and future studies.