Eye Tracking: Giving Buyers a Basis for Comparison
Behavioral economics is a field that focuses on how social, emotional, and cognitive factors affect how people go about making economic decisions. For example, what makes a person decide to buy something they weren’t originally planning on purchasing? Or, why would someone by a more expensive product over a cheaper one? There are many ways to evaluate these areas of behavioral economics: statistical analysis, consumer questionnaires, or video surveillance, to name a few. An article titled “Behavioral Economics and Eye-Tracking” brings to light a way to use eye tracking as a tool to evaluate shoppers’ behavior (specifically gaze behavior) when making a purchase decision.
The author sought to answer a question about how important it is for the consumer to see the full price of a sale item so that they have some kind of gauge as to the value they are receiving at the sale price. To do this, 60 shoppers were asked to wear a mobile eye-tracker as they chose a smoothie from the chilled beverage aisle. Half were directed to a shelf in which only sale prices were displayed, and the other half had to choose from smoothies on sale placed next to non-sale price smoothies. After making a purchase, the shoppers were asked if they felt their purchase was a good value.
The eye-tracking results, demonstrated in the form of a heat map, illustrated that shoppers looked at both the sale price AND the regular price, when displayed, before making their choice. Those that had seen the full price felt more strongly that they had received a good value for their money. The author concludes that it is important for buyers to have a basis for comparison when making a purchase decision. A buyer’s satisfaction is highly dependent on their perception of the deal they are getting. There are many factors that come into play when making this determination of value, but eye-tracking is effective in giving some insight into how consumers go about evaluating the choices they face.
Behavioural Economics and Eye Tracking
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