IMPACT OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT ON FOOD CHOICE

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Impact of product placement on food choice

The proximity of a person to the food they are supposed to take might be a great way to make them consume that specific food as the proximity will make them susceptible to buying such foods. However, this does not apply to everyone as some people will opt for what they want to eat and not what is healthy for them. Therefore this makes them go even for long distances only to get what they want to take. However, most people might be subjected to healthy foods by making healthy foods look very cool and useful for them. The issue of food placement affects a person’s choice. In that the placement of foods or just any other items close to the people and making sure such items and foods are lovely to the customers makes them want to eat the foods which are close to them and which in most times should be healthy. Therefore herein, I will examine if it is true that the type of shop a person visit determines what they consume. For example, if a person frequently visits groceries, there is an assumption that their fruits and vegetables will be high and right.

In my desire and willingness to prove this and compare and contrast the different foodstuffs available in the different shops around my area and online, I took a virtual tour. I identified the different shops around my place and even those far online shops and what they say about foods and what they promote more as healthy foods and what is not promoted or there are warnings against taking a particular food (Weijters, 2009). I visited Walmart, one of the largest online shops in the United States, and the experience was good as everything was available. Therefore it is the customer’s choice to choose what they like and just order for delivery at their location. I also visited Costco’s online platform and looked at the different products they offered with more concentration on the food area. The last store I checked was Sears.

The virtual tour was exciting, even though it would have been better to go physically. From what I saw, I got to experience a lot to get to know the priorities of different people and why they prioritize some things more than others. Therefore, from these kinds of advertisements and information, I came to know that most people are unable to get fresh fruits and vegetables unless they go to their neighborhood groceries. However, with the big online shops, there is always a fear of going at a loss by selling fresh vegetables due to their perishable nature and how they are supposed to be traveled. This makes these companies opt for canned vegetables or other preserved foodstuffs, which cannot go bad within a day after their harvesting since even some of the customers are from different and varied places where they might not be available fast.

Having visited Walmart, the categories shown in the screenshot below are the ones that popped up in the categories section of the online store. This is an indication that.

-381000000What people consume is what is readily available. In this online store, the available foods cannot be considered exclusively healthy for taking. Even though they are essential and useful to take, there are no foodstuffs like fruits or fresh vegetables that make the people consume only what is available, and therefore, what is available might not always be useful to consume. It is not everything available that is healthy.

Therefore from this shop, we can see that the shop is trying to minimize on its situation whereby if they decided to sell some fresh vegetables and fruits there would be a likelihood of them going bad. Therefore, due to the desire and wish to protect the company’s financial situation, they sell what cannot go rancid quickly, thus preserving themselves at the citizens’ expense.

-14287513462000Apart from Walmart, I also visited Costco’s online shop. There was an improvement from Walmart; however, the items sold were not completely different but were somehow related. Therefore these shops can be said to sell more healthy foods, and the exposure of customers to these types of foods makes them healthy, but their lives become better. Therefore, this shop might be doing what is referred to as exposing excellent food like the groceries to the public and their customers; therefore, the food will be bought and contribute to the healthy eating of their customers.

The last shop I visited was Sears, and since there did not seem to be a category for food, I had to search for food and grocery. I was delighted to identify a fresh basket of vegetables that indicated that a person should 0381000add it to the basket on checking out and paying to get the price or the cost of their fresh vegetables. However, apart from this, other types of foods are also suitable, and most of them are canned. Therefore it is possible to say that this shop operates on an almost equal basis with the other shops. The only difference is that a person can buy fresh vegetables in this specific shop, unlike in the other shops, whereby most of the foods are canned and preserved.

I can say that the order of placement of food in the online stores visited affected my choice very much. However, my concentration on groceries, fruits, and vegetables was not satisfied as the online shops showed me canned food initially and therefore did not show me how to about ordering the fresh foods I needed. Therefore it is right from experience that the proximity and the manner of placement of food into certain places and areas which might attract customers are of much importance. This is what is utilized by most of these online shops whereby they always place what they need to be bought, mostly at the front page whereby the person who opens the website can see them immediately. Therefore it becomes easy for that specific item to be bought rather than another item being bought. This can be said to be a type of advertising whereby a person’s psychology is shifted to believe and trust that what they see first is the best, and they have to buy that specific item from the shop ( Kline, & Wagner, 1994).

These online shops have always had a significant impact on people, especially the busy people who do not have the time to go and line up at a store. It has also served people much during the corona period, and it continues to serve people every day. However, the online platforms should avail more foods and more groceries to the customers because it is through this that health will be ensured, and therefore life will be better for most people. This is because what a person sees first and what is close to them is likely for the people to buy and have such.

In conclusion, therefore I can say it is upon the businesses and the governments to avail what is healthy to the people so that a good society is ensured at the end of it all. Therefore, money has to be balanced with what is right for society and not just what is good for the businesses’ financial stability.

References

‌ Overby, J. W., & Lee, E. J. (2006). The effects of utilitarian and hedonic online shopping value on consumer preference and intentions. Journal of Business Research, 59(10-11), 1160-1166.

Kline, B., & Wagner, J. (1994). Information sources and retail buyer decision-making: the effect of the product-specific buying experience. Journal of Retailing, 70(1), 75-88.

Shop: Appliances, Tools, Clothing, Mattresses & More. (n.d.). Www.sears.com. https://www.sears.com

Weijters, B., Geuens, M., & Schillewaert, N. (2009). The proximity effect: The role of inter-item distance on the reverse-item bias. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 26(1), 2-12.