Label as Small to Increase Trial

“Try a little bit. Maybe you’ll like it, and you’ll want lots more.”
     Your customers have heard that since they were small children resisting any sort of change in familiar diet or habits. Now that they’re old enough to make their own shopping decisions, small change still pays off.

• Researchers at Koç University in Istanbul and at University of Michigan found that consumers who ate from food packages labeled as small felt less guilty than similar consumers who ate from the same size packages not labeled as small.
• Researchers at Technical University of Lisbon and at Tilburg University in the Netherlands found that people who were hesitant about eating a food product were more likely to overcome their hesitations when presented with small packages than when presented the equivalent amount in a large package. In addition, the people who got started on the small packages ended up eating more than did those who dug into the large package. The participants had said they believed small packages would help them limit their consumption, but the opposite proved to be true.
• Researchers at University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University first identified a group of consumers who said on a survey that they hated spending money on items beyond necessities. The researchers called these people “tightwads.” In the next stage of the study, the tightwads were offered the opportunity to pay extra for overnight shipping of a DVD they wanted to have. The extra cost was presented to some tightwads as “a $5 fee” and to the rest of the tightwads as “a small $5 fee.” The tightwads hearing the word “small” were 20% more likely to pay the fee than those not hearing that word. In contrast, there was no difference with a “$5” and “small $5” description among people who were spendthrifts—people who indicated on the earlier survey the opposite of tightwad tendencies.

     When you’ve a hesitant shopper, offer a version of the choice which you can legitimately describe as small, and then describe it to the shopper in that way. This tactic is a component of the “foot-in-the-door” technique: The salesperson makes a small request, and then, when the customer agrees, follows up with a larger request.
     The small change tactic can be misused by the retailer to get consumers to engage in unhealthy habits. Reserve its use for facilitating positive change.

Click below for more:
Make the Sale a Slice at a Time
Give Shoppers a Comparison Point