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we're here today with Wharton professor
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Barbara Kahn to talk about her new
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research which takes a look at how store
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display design can impact choice by our
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thanks for being with us today it's my
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pleasure
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so first of all can you give us kind of
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a brief overview of the research well
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this is part of a general stream that I
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do on perceived variety so I'm
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interested in assortment and one of the
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key variables of an assortment is how
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much varieties in an assortment but my
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little take on it is instead of looking
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at actual variety I'm interested in the
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perceived variety and so in all the
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experiments that I've done recently I
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hold the actual variety constant and I
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change the perception of variety and
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measure that I mean I think I was like I
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think perceived variety is probably
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really the key there because if even if
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the store would have lots of things for
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sale if people think they have very
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little it doesn't really matter how much
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they and now what are kind of a key
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takeaways you found that there's a
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pretty significant difference between
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vertical sort of sway and horizontal
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well so this actually just to go back to
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your point for a second is that is what
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what's interesting about perceived
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variety versus actual variety so
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sometimes as you are alluding to the
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actual varieties too much they can't
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take it in so I would argue in that case
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the perceived variety is smaller than
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the actual variety but in other cases
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the actual variety is small and you
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might want to do something to increase
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the perceived variety and this research
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is more in that stream and so what we
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found is if you take the exact same
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number of items the same items the same
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number of items the same actual variety
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and array them either horizontally or
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vertically it changes the perception of
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variety now talk a little bit more about
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what people see when they see a vertical
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display versus what they see when they
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see a horizontally and this is a very
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very very subtle effect and it doesn't
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last for a long time but it lingers and
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so what we found is when it's horizontal
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since your eyes are horizontal what we
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call binocular vision you can take in
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the items in the assortment more easily
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it's called higher perceptual fluency
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and that because it's just a little bit
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easier to take in the items when it's
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horizontal you think there's more
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variety there with invertigo because
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your eyes aren't arrayed horizontally
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you can't take as much in at once and
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also you tend to move your head a little
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bit which is just that much harder and
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so initially the ease of processing the
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items
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the vertical assortment is harder than
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in the horizontal brook and that gives
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you this illusion of more perceived
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variety
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now clearly after a few seconds the
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effect goes away I think the effect
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lasts less than three seconds so it's
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not a big effect but because people
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don't care that much and they don't
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overthink this their initial perceptions
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linger and they think there's more
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perceived variety so even if they've
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looked a little harder and realized oh
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there's more here than I thought they're
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still gonna sort of have that initial
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impression stuck in their head which I
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would think would then could potentially
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impact their buying decisions right and
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that's what where we're going with it
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right so the idea is if you think
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there's a little more percent perceived
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variety you tend to seek more variety in
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your choices and when you seek more
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variety in your choices you tend to
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overall purchase more so we ran a number
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of experiments sometimes we held
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constant or we controlled the number of
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items they could choose so we'd had a
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raise of candies that were horizontal or
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vertical we said pick three and in that
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case we were just measuring whether they
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picked three different ones or four
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fewer than three different ones I mean
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we found in the horizontal they tended
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to choose more variety
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holding the number of items constant
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than they did in the vertical one but in
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a store experiment we read we didn't
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hold anything constant we just observed
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and we arrayed the display either
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horizontally or vertically and we found
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in the horizontal assortment they chose
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more different types which resulted in
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more purchases overall and so they chose
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more items when the when they were
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arrayed horizontally than when they were
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raid vertically and they had no
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difference in the perception of the
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design of the assortment that wasn't
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what was driving it now with key
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takeaways for this for businesses I mean
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is it necessarily that everybody should
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be changing their displays to horizontal
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or is it more complicated yeah it's more
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complicated so it's part I guess the
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idea is if you want people to choose
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more than one in the product category
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then it might be better to array them
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horizontally and you might think a lot
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of times stores just kind of get to this
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finding themselves but you know they
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don't really understand why but a lot of
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times if you're looking within a
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category and you're choosing more than
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one type they are arrayed horizontally
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and then if you're only going to choose
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one like your favorite or something like
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that that tends to be arrayed more
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vertically so we noticed that stores
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kind of followed this rule almost into
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it
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bleh but it does depend if you want
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people to choose the most preferred or
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be brand loyal to something then a
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vertical assortment might make more
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sense now these days I mean we're making
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our purchases not just in a
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brick-and-mortar store but also online
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now does this research only have
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implications for the brick-and-mortar
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store are there also implications here
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for how a display might be set up on an
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online website even though they don't
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really use shelves per se yeah no it's
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definitely in fact most we did run
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experiments in stores from physical
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displays but we also ran them online and
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there we use graphic design to kind of
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make the assortment look like it was
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horizontal or the graphic design and
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make it look vertically and we
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definitely found these effects online
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now what would you say would be kind of
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if I am a customer I mean are there
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implications there for me as well I mean
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just to sort of check your perceptions
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when you come in or I mean anything like
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that I guess it doesn't matter that much
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you know it's just I mean a lot of the
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things that I do don't affect choice
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that that much it's on the margin
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affects the market are actually a little
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bit more because I don't think there's a
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mistake here
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you know sometimes some of the things
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that we find were tricking the consumer
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but in this case I don't think we're
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tricking them we're just arraying it in
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such a way that it's more pleasing and
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what's next for this research what are
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you going to take are you going to take
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this further or is there another sort of
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similar like related stream to this that
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you're also working yeah I do a lot of
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work on this notion of perceived
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varieties so I've looked at things
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holding everything constant whether if
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it's visually depicted or verbally
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depicted how that affects perceived
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variety I've also looked at what you
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were talking about earlier the idea if
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there's too much choice what can we do
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to make it simpler and you're seeing in
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retail kind of a trend particularly on
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the online and stuff like that to find
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these curated assortments so more is you
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know less is more kind of the idea
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because people get so overwhelmed with
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choice but I find that if one of the
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advantages of online assortments is you
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can have really big assortments and so
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you can you know cater to the
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heterogeneity of preferences with a very
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large assortment and so if you can learn
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some of these cues about how to make the
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variety seem less or more depending on
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what your goal is you can still have big
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assortment so that's kind of where I
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like to go with it thank you so much for
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being with us today sure it was fun
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thank you
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you
