Precommitment and personalized product recommendations: an incentivized study in online grocery shopping

Abstract

Food-related sustainability and health issues have led to calls for improving consumer food choices. As food purchase decisions predominantly occur in supermarkets and increasingly in online supermarkets, online interventions to stimulate healthy and sustainable grocery choices have gained importance. Using an incentivized experiment, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of precommitment to a health goal and personalized product recommendations upon entering the online store. We analyzed participants’ online grocery shopping behavior and experience within a realistic online shopping environment (N = 1,088). Results show that healthy grocery choices are encouraged through product recommendations in the form of a landing page with healthy items as well as a prefilled basket with healthy items. The greatest impact was observed from landing page interventions with healthy products. Participants were also in favor of landing page interventions during their regular grocery shopping. Yet, interventions lower individuals’ perceived self-efficacy in making healthy choices. Understanding how interventions impact consumers’ behavior, experience, and self-efficacy gives retailers directions on how to stimulate healthy food choices, guiding the sustainability transition.