Utilising eye-tracking data in retailing field research: A practical guide

Jens Nordfält and Carl-Philip Ahlbom

Journal of Retailing, 2024, vol. 100, issue 1, 148-160

Abstract: Eye-tracking offers many insights into shopping cognition by capturing proxies to attention patterns, visual processing, and decision sequences. While lab experiments using simulated shopping tasks are becoming more common in retailing research, field research using eye-tracking technology remains scarce despite higher ecological validity. This paper advocates expanding eye-tracking adoption into brick-and-mortar contexts and provides guidelines for researchers interested in conducting such retailing research. The authors discuss different data types that can be used to understand in-store shopping behaviours and argue why eye-tracking offers a compelling opportunity to decode consumer decisions in real-world complexity. Next, they review current literature, highlighting good examples of existing field studies and areas of opportunities for new research. Finally, the authors provide stepwise best-practice guidelines for executing impactful, triangulated field research across the retail landscape using eye-tracking. The paper presents a call to action for expanding eye-tracking research beyond the lab and into real-world retail aisles.

Keywords: Retailing; Eye-tracking; Consumer behaviour; Attention; Behavioural data; Field experiments; Field studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243592400006X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jouret:v:100:y:2024:i:1:p:148-160

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2024.02.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing is currently edited by A. Roggeveen

More articles in Journal of Retailing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().