Wednesday 11 July 2012

Shame elasticity of demand

Here's a fun one. New Zealand supermarkets have started putting in self-checkouts. Turns out customers buying embarrassing or personal products are more likely to choose those checkouts than ones staffed by clerks.
Pak 'n Save Moorhouse Ave was the first supermarket in New Zealand to have them installed, in 2006.
Foodstuffs chief executive Steve Anderson said 20 to 30 per cent of transactions were now through self-checkouts. However, they accounted for a far lower proportion of customer spending.
Customer research showed people who used the self-checkouts tended to buy fewer items and were often mothers with children, the technology-minded or introverted.
"Embarrassing products", such as personal or indulgent items, were more commonly bought at the self-checkout.
Anderson said there had been some savings for the business, but "nothing major". It had not saved on employee numbers. "The idea was more about customer choice and convenience," he said. "You still need staff there." [emphasis added]
So here's a potential IV study for somebody. If people are more likely to buy condoms when these kinds of self-checkouts are introduced, and there's no correlation between self-checkout installation and underlying sexual behaviour trends, you could use the availability of self-checkouts as an instrument for condom use. Ta dah!

It would likely be a weak instrument, alas; the correlation isn't likely to be that high.

10 comments:

  1. I really doubt that high a proportion of condoms are sold through supermarkets, though, given how expensive they are there. For women in their 20s, you can get a script for a dozen boxes for $3 from the doctor.

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  2. But if we're most interested in the class of folks who'd be most likely to catch an STD, where having quick discreet access to condoms might make the difference between using and not using, then it could there matter. I've emailed FoodStuffs asking whether they've noticed any changes in total sales of "embarrassing" items across outlets when self-checkouts were installed; will see what they report back if anything.

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  3. I'd think that eventually a high minimum wage will make self checkouts more economic than checkout chicks.

    JC

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  4. Can men get that prescription too? Or just women? Or is it that it's only women who go for the prescription despite broader availability?

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  5. I absolutely refuse to use self-checkouts for the same reason I refuse to frequent Pak'n'Save (poor use of the English language aside!) If I'm going to pay for the checkout staff through the price of my groceries I'm going to damn well make sure I get to use them. If perhaps there was a discount for self-checkout I may be convinced to use it but this is very unlikely.

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  6. I heard somewhere that what really drove the success of polaroid, back in the day, was amature pornography.

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  7. Remember they are "checkout grannies" now, owing to the high relative youth minimum wage pushing out the youth in favour of more reliable grannies.

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  8. the computers don't work well on those self check outs. you can flick the condoms past the machine and into the plastic bag, then the system stops, granny supermarket comes up, looks in the bag, presses in a number 23863524 CONDOM and walks away, then you flick over the booze, granny is watching, she has to come up and check you out, it requires authority to check out booze. What the matter I say I know II am too old to drink booze, here is my brother's licence for ID, jesus I forgot the cigarettes, fags, oh my god i have to go trough the regular check out to get fags, think I go to my dealer now straight away its easier no questions, don't look at me like that woman its only my second bottle today.

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  9. off subject again but referring to what dominictar below said about pornographic pictures and polaroid,and that stuff about sexy picture girl , and embarrassment, I once took a picture of a woman tied up, with hardly no clothes on and a man beside her laughing with a whip sent it to the developer the precious little darlings said no we don't print this stuff, it took me three years to get it printed, if you see it today you laughing and laughing and you say isn't life silly,

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  10. That only happens probabilistically; a clerk sees the purchase with certainty if you go through the regular checkout.

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