An empirical multi-method investigation of price knowledge in food retailing

Purpose - This paper aims to add insights on consumers' price knowledge in food retailing using a theory-based multi-method approach. Design/methodology/approach - The paper provides data from one questionnaire and two experimental studies. The aim of the first study was to address price recall. To do so, data were collected on the accuracy of grocery-shopper price knowledge for 20 carefully selected products. Using the mall intercept method, three trained interviewers queried 300 randomly selected people in the store, but prior to shopping. After a period of four weeks the subjects were contacted by phone and asked whether they would like to participate in a second two-step experiment. A total of 105 of the original 300 shoppers agreed to take part in the second study, in which a recognition task in terms of a computer experiment was accomplished with and without financial incentives. Findings - The results of these studies confirmed the authors' expectations, based on theoretical considerations that: the level of price recall is lower than the level of price recognition; incentives have no influence on price-knowledge in the recognition task; and price-knowledge for private labels is significantly higher in the recall, as well as in the recognition task. Moreover, in regression analyses it was found that there was no significant influence of age, gender, price-consciousness, duration of customership, and shopping transactions per week on price recall and/or price recognition. Research limitations/implications - The findings are limited with respect to branch, time period, and culture. Originality/value - This paper is the first using a multi-method approach to measure price-recall and price-recognition in food retailing. Moreover, it adds evidence concerning the differences of price-knowledge due to the nature of the brand. Finally, it is shown that incentives and certain demographics have no influence on price-knowledge.