2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Plant selection in a retail location is a topic of great interest because growers, wholesalers, and retailers all benefit when a plant is sold. In the retail setting, consumers may encounter displays of few or many plants and the species may be similar or dissimilar in the same display. We hypothesized that a consumer will look at a limited number of plants before making a choice, and that the number of plants in a display of the same species would affect the time (to make) and outcome of a purchase decision. We further hypothesized that more choices in plant number or species would increase the likelihood of purchase, but increase the time to make a purchase decision. Participants were recruited over two days of study, one in which subjects saw herb plants and another where subjects saw annual plants. After signing a consent form, subjects were calibrated to Tobii Glasses 2 eye-tracking hardware and shown simple displays of 6, 12 or 24 plants of one genus then complex displays with 2, 3 or 4 species arranged in visually isolated cubicles. Herb displays consisted of basil, parsley, sage and rosemary. Annual displays included calibrachoa, petunia, verbena and Osteospermum. A common path to each cubicle was marked on the floor, however the start position advanced one display for each participant in a reduced Latin square order. Respondents were asked to verbally indicate which plant in a display they would choose to purchase (or none) and how likely they were to purchase the indicated plant. Likeliness to buy (LTB) was measured on a 0 to 10 Juster scale. Time to choice (TTC) was calculated as the time from first view of the display plants to the time a plant was indicated. For annual plants, results showed that subjects viewed a lower percentage of plants as the number of plants increased. The opposite was true for herb displays. The percentage of plants viewed in the complex displays with multiple genera did not vary. TTC was similar for all displays but LTB increased with an increase in the number of genera (complexity) for annuals but not herbs. We conclude that larger and more complex displays do not necessarily increase the likelihood of a purchase. Retailers might consider reducing the number of plants in a display to lessen consumer fatigue without affecting likeliness to buy.