Consumer price comparisons of retail products: The role of packaging and pricing practices and the implications for consumer legislation

Abstract

Examined whether conditions in the American marketplace permit accurate consumer comparisons of the prices of packaged retail products. 499 customers of an inner-city supermarket and 526 customers of a suburban supermarket were tested on 6 sets of price-comparison problems. A 2 * 3 factorial design was utilized to explore packaging and pricing variables that were hypothesized to affect problem difficulty. Results support the hypotheses and suggest that adoption by supermarkets of a new information display, called dual-price labels, would yield substantial reductions in difficulty level for many price-comparison problems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)