Package Design - June 2012 - 28

Q& A
First Order of

RAJESH BAGCHI

Assistant professor of marketing at the Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech University, where he studies the psychological processes that underlie consumer and managerial decision-making.

Business
B
undling goods in multi-unit packages can help woo price-conscious consumers battered by recent economic challenges. But newly published research out of Virginia Tech University shows that successful brands need to do more than just develop well-priced multi-unit packages. This research, conducted by Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business (Blacksburg, VA) assistant professor of marketing Rajesh Bagchi and Ph.D. student Derick Davis, found that how package designers communicate price on the package just might be the most powerful shopper influencer. The duo studied whether presenting the price or units first affected consumers’ likelihood to purchase. To ensure that their findings were applicable to a wide range of target markets, Bagchi and Davis conducted three studies over a period of a year and a half, with more than 800 participants (ages ranging from 18 to 70-plus) with varying socioeconomic backgrounds. Package Design sat down with Bagchi to discuss how designers and brand owners can use these studies’ findings to better communicate a packaged good’s value and convert shoppers into buyers.

By Linda Casey

The price is right, but is the presentation? How price is communicated in multi-unit package design impacts a brand’s bottom line.

PD: What prompted you to do this study?
Rajesh Bagchi: The idea for this particular project came about from our own experiences in the grocery store. At about the same time, Derick and I

Purchase decisions are often feelings-based. If it feels right, we seldom double check, even if we have smartphones that recognize bar codes and compare prices online.
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started thinking about similar ways in which products are presented. In my case, when buying diapers for my then one-year-old daughter, I always chose the larger package with 38 diapers in it. The number of items was salient for me, and I thought I was getting a great deal. One day, I looked at the unit price and realized that the deal was no better than that of a smaller size box. It appears that I was paying too much attention to the number of items and didn’t take into account the actual price. Derick had a similar experience, though in a different category. This got us thinking about all the different factors that brands vary when promoting multi-item package prices. And we realized that, without systematic research into these factors, it would be difficult to make assessments about how consumers interpret multiple-item packaging and pricing.

PD: How important is price presentation on multi-pack design for product sales?
It’s probably the most important thing in sales contexts. We find that subtle
Package Design - June 2012

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