This article presents a new conceptualization of the in-store search process, the 3S Model, which captures customers’ visual attention at three distinct levels of analysis: Stock, Shelf, and Store. We illustrate the usefulness of our conceptualization through three eye-tracking studies, one from each level of analysis in the 3S Model.
Through the 3S Model, we get a deeper understanding of the consumer decision-making process by dividing the customer journey into three distinct levels, stock, store, and shelf. Unlike traditional methods, the 3S Model illuminates the whole choice process instead of only focusing on outcomes such as product choices. Demonstrating the procedure will be co-author Poja Shams.
Co-author Tobias Otterbring will serve as the participant. To begin this procedure, select the stimuli and task instructions based on the specific S studied in the 3S Model and the type of research question addressed. For fields studies, consider relying on the shopping list procedure which ensures that customers will take approximately the same in-store path since this increases the experimental control.
Use binocular, video-based, combined pupil corneal reflection systems for the eye tracking recordings. For field studies, use a head-mounted mobile system with a sampling frequency of at least 30 hertz. First, design the procedure to ensure that the participants have sufficient time for the task completion.
For the study demonstrated here, using olive oil and coffee as examples of products on the shopping list. The video recording will take approximately 15 minutes per participant including calibration procedure and data collection. Give participants the study-specific task instructions.
For field studies, ask participants to complete a pre-defined shopping task which naturally exposes them to a certain set of in-store stimuli. Next, place the eye tracking system around a participant's head. Start the experimental session with a calibration procedure of the eye tracking system.
When ready to begin a trial, start the eye tracking recordings according to the manufacturer's instructions. Distribute a pre-defined shopping list that is different between subjects. The first product on the list in this demonstration is olive oil.
The shopping list will guide the consumers to choose either an expensive or cheap version of olive oil. This task corresponds to the shelf level of the 3S Model. The second, and last product on the list in this demonstration is coffee.
Before the participant arrives at the shelf, manipulate where the coffee products are located on the shelf to investigate whether a specific coffee package is more likely than another coffee package to be chosen when located at the same place in the shelf. Following the shopping list, the consumer will reach the coffee section of the store after having made their olive oil choice. This corresponds to the stock level of the 3S Model.
When the experimental tasks are complete, stop the eye tracking recordings and debrief participants about the study purpose. For the stock level findings, analysis is based on those participants who detected the packaging element within the time limit of 7.0 seconds. Thus, the dependent variable is the time to first fixation or TTFF.
Inspection of cell means reveals that the pictorial packaging element was detected quicker when located on the right side of the package while the textual packaging elements are detected quicker when located on the left side. Thus, the results on detection time for textural and pictorial packaging elements support the element organization advocated by the preference view rather than the recall view and suggests that preference may be a function of easy information acquisition. For the shelf level findings, the dependent variable is TTFF on target which here means the time it took from stimulus exposure until participants fixated on either a premium product or a budget product depending on their randomly assigned experimental condition and the shelf configuration.
Participants generally detect the target quicker when it is located on the vertical position that best serves as a queue of its value. For the premium product, participants noted the target faster in the congruent location while the budget product is noted more quickly in the incongruent location. Taken together, these results show that participants tend to move their gaze upwards independent of tasks, however, they turn their gaze downward faster in a budget task than in a premium task.
For the store level findings, the dependent variable is the number of observations on the areas of interests with the AOIs defined for all relevant portions of the store. Participants in the specific choice group observe a fairly equal number of AOIs during their first task and their subsequent choice task. In contrast, participants in the non-specific choice group observe a smaller number of AOIs during their first choice task compared to the second choice task.
These results show how the specificity of an initial shopping goal influences customers visual search behavior during a choice task and how such a choice task affects the visual behavior during subsequent choices. Carefully defining the procedure and selecting the task stimuli is the most important thing when using the 3S Model. The 3S Model offers a more nuanced view of the consumer decision-making process than previous models as it captures more than navigation and choice alone.
