When & Why

We Forget To Buy
Daniel Fernandes, Stefano Puntoni,
Stijn M.J. van Osselaer, Elizabeth Cowley

Received 24 January 2013;

received in revised form 23 June 2015;
accepted 26 June 2015
Gilang Saputra • Handaru • Fishka Rachmad
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Journal Profile
Quantitative Research - Experimental Hypothesis Test
Participant : 5 Study Repeated measures ANOVA
▹ 145 (Southwest European university ANOVA is a statistical analysis that tests the
students) average difference between groups. Groups here
▹ 463 (MTurk workers ) can be interpreted as a group or type of
treatment
Down to 407
involves multiple measures of the same variable
▹ 83 (Southwest European university taken on the same or matched subjects either
students) under different conditions
▹ 104 (Individuals from a large
metropolitan area in Southwest
Europe )
Stop after 100
▹ 28 (Undergraduate students)

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Do you have a
good memory
skill?
How often you rely on your memory
skill? How good you memorized
thing(s)? Do you believe that you
have a good memory skill? How well
can you predict that you might or
might not forgetting something?

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Ever forgetting
something from
the grocery store?
And what you do if you did forget
something?
Main points
▸ Shopping Groceries. Consumer often forget things
▸ For companies, consumer forgetting results in missed sales
▸ Problem for both routine or occasional product
▸ can be substantially reduced by the simple use of shopping lists
▸ If consumers can accurately predict forgetting  Preventive
will be employed to reduce the likelihood to forgetting
▸ Distinguish between a stimulus-based search strategy & a
memory-based search strategy

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Theories
▸ Consumers have difficulty remembering previously identified grocery needs. In fact, on
average consumers fail to buy about 30% of items they intended to buy
▸ These unfulfilled purchases occur less often when a memory aid, such as a shopping list, is
used. However, many shoppers do not use shopping lists. Descriptive studies from
several countries show that only about half of shoppers use lists
▸ Research in consumer behaviour shows that memory while shopping is highly fallible,
and that shoppers need a shopping list to remember
▸ Consumers may choose to shop for groceries by recalling their planned purchases from
memory, locating the recalled products, and putting them in their shopping cart.
▸ shoppers may choose to methodically move through each of the sections of the store
visually scanning the items to ensure all of the required products are selected, We call this
a stimulus-based search.
▸ Memory-based strategy and Stimulus-based strategy is a matter of degree.
▸ Some researchers have found that frequently purchased brands are more accessible and
thus more likely to be considered

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Theories (Continue)
▸ Infrequently purchased brands, such as those from low market share brands or lower
price alternatives, are at least as likely to be considered, and by implication remembered,
as frequently purchased brands
▸ The word frequency paradox posits that common words are better recalled than rare
words, while rare words are more easily recognized than common words
▸ Stimulus-based search strategy and recognition tasks require one to discriminate target
items from among a set of distracting items
▸ Memory-based search strategy and recall tasks require one to actively retrieve an item
from memory
▸ If people can perfectly predict how well they will remember grocery items they need
when shopping, then they can make informed judgments about whether they need to
take preventative measures
▸ People estimate their memory performance based on how easily they can access the
items at the time of memory predictions, not on the conditions in the retrieval environment.

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Search Bar

Categories Section
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Study 1a – Shopping for Groceries
145 (Southwest European university students),

Prediction:
(1) that consumers are less likely to forget frequently-purchased grocery items
than infrequently-purchased grocery items when they rely on a memory-
based search strategy but not when they rely on a stimulus-based search
strategy and
(2) that consumers do not spontaneously predict this interaction effect before
shopping.

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 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5

Presentation of Time delay of 8 Shopping task Manipulation

items to instructions Manipulation
min and 9 s on check of search
check of frequency
participants and average strategy
A. Search Engine of item purchase
memory
predictions. B. Control Rate:
• Familiarity with the
Condition
Group A, B & C product
C. Categories • Frequently consume
Section the product
• Frequently buy the
product

Result:
Prediction confirmed.

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Study 1b - Shopping for Groceries
463 (MTurk workers ), Down to 407

Replicating Study 1a, with a larger sample of US-based participants

and a slightly different treatment.

Assumption:
may be more experienced with grocery shopping than undergraduate
students.

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 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6

Instruction Presentation of Time interval of Shopping task Manipulation

Manipulation
manipulation items to 10 min instructions check of search
check of frequency
check participants and of item purchase
strategy
A. Search Engine
memory
• Reading the B. Control Rate:
predictions. • Familiarity with the
direction Condition
product
• Determine Group A, B & C C. Categories • Frequently consume
feelings And change one Section the product
of the frequently • Frequently buy the
product
purchase item

Result:
that the effect of frequency of item purchase is stronger in the memory-based condition (freq >
infreq) than in the stimulus-based condition (freq < infreq).

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Study 2 – Recall Vs. Recognition
83 (Southwest European university students)

Test: the interaction between the frequency of item purchase and

search strategy, using standard recall and recognition tasks.

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 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

Presentation of Memory Time delay of 3 Memory task

items to predictions. min and 31 s on
participants average
A. Recall
Condition
B. Recognition
Condition

Result:
In the recall task, participants remembered more items in the frequently purchased item
condition than in the infrequently purchased item condition. In the recognition task,
participants remembered a similar number of frequently and infrequently purchased items.

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Study 3a & 3b – Naivety Check
• 104 (Individuals from a large metropolitan area in Southwest
Europe ), Stop after 100
• 28 (Undergraduate students)

Test: examined whether people are naïve about when they might
forget.

Prediction:
We predicted that the more items participants thought they would forget the
more likely they would indicate that they would use a shopping list. The test
is important because we have assumed that memory predictions drive
behaviour.

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 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

Measurement of Measurement of Hypothetical shopping

grocery shopping participants' theories experience
behavior about forgetting.

Result:
Study 3a shows that respondents who estimate their in-store memory performance to be less accurate indicate
that they would be more likely to use a shopping list.
Study 3b replicate the finding that when memory predictions are low people are more likely to use a shopping
list.

Both undergraduates and experienced shoppers were aware that they are more likely to remember infrequently
purchased items when using the stimulus-based search strategy. In addition, memory predictions influence
the decision to use a shopping list.

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Conclusion
Our findings suggest
that consumers are We also show that consumers fail to
Implications of our
more likely to anticipate that they would forget. When
findings should remember frequently
extend to other tasks people are not accurate about how well
performed tasks from they will remember, they cannot
in which memory is their memory and adequately prepare memory aids
crucial infrequently performed
tasks with the help of
stimulus cues

simple rule: Don't ask yourself if you'll remember

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Any question?

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THANKS!

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