Van Ittersum, Koert; Joost M. E. Pennings, Brian Wansink

How Shoppers actually Keep Track of In-Store Spending

Two field studies and two laboratory shopping simulations offer new insights on strategies used to keep track of spending and their consequences. The number one reason for trying to keep track of the spending is clearly a constrained budget. Most shoppers used computational estimation strategies. The results showed that shoppers in the lower income area tried harder to be more accurate. Respondents who tried to calculate the exact total price of the basket were unable to do so effectively and suffered the worst accuracy.