Horse Around with Healthy Selecting

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.” Along with being arguably the oldest proverb of English-language origin still regularly used, this sentiment serves as a caution for retailers aiming to increase the healthfulness of shoppers’ food and beverage purchases. We could carry nutritious items and then advertise and merchandise those particular items aggressively. But the individual shopper might still toss the unhealthy rubbish into their basket and toss out the idea of nutritious consumption.
     Research indicates that we can tilt the preferences in our favor—and in favor of the purchaser’s health—by recognizing that certain types of consumers are more likely to select the healthy option when they’ve recently encountered an unhealthy choice. In studies at Taiwan’s National Chung Hsing University, participants were assessed for their degree of calorie consciousness and degree of accurate nutrition knowledge. The participants were then offered a sequence of choices among healthier and less healthy food items.
     Those who had high calorie consciousness or highly accurate nutrition knowledge were more likely to select a healthy item if they’d first selected an unhealthy item. This finding is in accord with the observation that when people put into their grocery shopping cart an item touted as healthy, the people became much more likely to select an unhealthy food item next. And that when a healthy salad was added to a list of side dish choices, diners separately identified as high in self-control became more likely to order the French fries.
     To help your shoppers, give them license to marry healthy with a bit of the unhealthy. Researchers at Harvard University and Duke University were interested in whether shoppers who brought their own bags to a grocery store would purchase a higher number of organic versions of items. The answer was yes. On those trips when the consumer brought their own bags, they were more likely to buy organic than on those trips when that same consumer didn’t bring bags.
     But there was more to the story: When shoppers bought organic, they were also more likely to add candy bars and cookies. The indulgences were mostly small purchases, not adding much nutritional threat for the shoppers. Accommodating consumers’ desire for licensing could end up increasing your shoppers’ healthy choices.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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