Regarding indulgent items the results depended on whether the participants had children in their households. For those with dependents there was no significant difference between the with bags and the without bags condition. For those without children the with bags participants were more likely to imagine buying ice cream and potato chips than the without bags participants.
A But the results couldn t speak to organic items while participants listed items such as milk and vegetables they generally didn t list whether their hypothetical choices were organic milk and vegetables. We could support Chinese Overseas America Number Data some of the story but not all of it yet Karmarkar says. And so she and Bollinger conducted a second experiment in which participants reported how much they d be willing to pay for each of nine specific products. These included both organic and indulgent items as well as baseline items like canned soup. Again the participants were divided into hypothetical conditions of with bags and without bags. Consistent with the empirical data the idea of bringing their own bags increased the likelihood that participants would buy both indulgent and organic items. Moreover it increased the amount of money they d be willing to pay for those items. But the researchers had another question.
Does it matter whether a reusable bag is the consumer s choice We wanted to examine whether it was important that you made the decision to bring the bags as opposed to a store policy that requires it says Karmarkar noting that some stores obligate customers to bring their own bags others charge customers a fee for single use carryout bags per a local government mandate. imagined bringing their own bags to the hypothetical grocery store. But while some were told to imagine bringing reusable bags of their own volition others imagined that they had to bring bags due to a store policy. Participants then rated their willingness to purchase organic indulgent and baseline items.