Small but Powerful: The Impact of Shelf Talker Flags on Consumer Shopping Behavior

Abstract

Unseen is unsold, which means that shoppers can only buy what they see in the store. Therefore, retailers use different in-store marketing techniques to increase visual exposure and stimulate purchases. In this paper, I investigate the effect of shelf talker flags on consumer shopping behavior. In doing so, I hypothesize that shelf talker flags increase the subjectively perceived search ease and purchases of marked products. A field experiment shows that shelf talker flags make products more visible and easier to find at the point of purchase, significantly increasing consumers’ subjectively perceived search ease. Furthermore, the results suggest that shelf talker flags can influence consumer buying behavior and increase purchases of marked products. However, this result is only marginally significant.

Keywords: in-store marketing; search ease; shelf talker flags; unplanned purchases; visual attention