Exploring the underlying motivations for how consumers respond to retail product displays
A growing body of research has examined how different shelving-related cues, such as the position or arrangement of products on a shelf, influence consumers’ attention, inferences, and even brand choice. However, recent research by ESADE professor Ana Valenzuela has found that the relationship between consumer responses and retail product displays is more complex and depends not only on cognitive aspects but also consumers’ motivational states.
In the recent paper The cake looks yummy on the shelf up there: The interactive effect of retail shelf position and consumers’ personal sense of power on indulgent choice, published in the Journal of Retailing, Prof. Valenzuela and her colleagues further explore how shelf displays affect consumer behavior. Through a series of experiments, they demonstrate that consumers’ directed head movements (up/down) to locate a product on the shelf interact with their innate personal sense of power to influence their likelihood of making an indulgent choice.
About ESADE
Founded in 1958, ESADE ranks among the top ten business schools in Europe in the most important International MBA, Executive Education and university programme rankings. ESADE has agreements and works with over 100 universities and business schools worldwide. The school offers doctoral programmes in management studies and conducts cutting-edge research in the fields of Data Science & Market Decisions, Economics & Finance, Entrepreneurship, Globalisation & Geopolitics, Governance, Innovation & Operations, Strategy, Leadership & People Management and Social Innovation.
