Which Can Better Guide Consumer Behavior, the Appearance or the Packaging Information of Fruit: A Study Based on Eye Movement Experiment

Abstract: Fresh food, such as fruit, its physical characteristics, and its packaging characteristics provide separate internal clues and external clues for consumers' cognition and attitude and purchase intention, however, how consumers pay attention to them and how they recognize their importance have not been analyzed and discussed. In this paper, three empirical studies were conducted to explore the role of the physical characteristics and packaging characteristics of fresh food such as fruits in the shopping process and their impact on consumers' attention distribution, cognition, and purchase decisions. Study 1 conducted an eye movement experiment to compare the difference in fixation points and fixation duration between cut and uncut fruits when the subjects gazed at fruits. Significant impacts of the fruit's physical characteristics on consumers' visual attention were found. Study 2 used another eye movement experiment to explore the effect of the visual elements of the fruit package on consumers' visual attention, and to compare the difference in the fixation points and fixation duration between the fruit itself, the text, and the image on the fruit package. Study 3 used a series of scales to investigate the importance of the specific information displayed by packaged fruits, consumers’ most concerned information was found by analyzing the impact of fruits’ physical characteristics and the package information on consumers' cognition and purchase decisions and the interaction between the two types of factors. The research results have specific reference significance for the packaging optimization design of fresh products such as fruits and commodity displays.

Keywords: Eye Movement, Attention Distribution, Consumption cognition

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003703

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