Incorporating Eye Tracking Technology and Conjoint Analysis to Better Understand the Green Industry Consumer

Plants are often merchandised with minimal packaging, thus, consumers have only the plant itself (intrinsic cue) or information signs (extrinsic cues) on which to assess product and on which to base their purchase decision. Our objective was to explore consumers’ preference for select plant display attributes and compare how consumers visually looked at the attributes. Using conjoint analysis we identified three distinct consumer segments: plant oriented (73%), production method oriented (11%), and price oriented (16%) consumers. Utilizing eye tracking technology we show that subjects spent more visual attention on cues in the retail displays that were relatively more important to them. For instance, plant oriented consumers were the fastest to fixate on the plants and looked at the plants for longer amounts of time compared to the other segments. Production method oriented consumers looked at the production labeling for a longer duration, while the price oriented consumer looked at the price sign the longest. Findings suggest that retailers should carefully consider the type of information included on signs and the relative importance those terms may have to a variety of consumers.