Background and aims: Buying smaller-sized alcohol products can reduce alcohol consumption, but larger products have better value for money, which presents a barrier to switching. We tested whether proportional pricing prompts drinkers to buy smaller alcohol products and reduce alcohol purchasing.
Design, setting and participants: This study was an online experiment set in the United Kingdom, using hypothetical shopping tasks in which participants purchased different-sized products presented under proportional pricing (i.e. constant price per litre throughout all sizes of the same product) or standard pricing conditions. Study 1 (comprising n = 210 participants) was a mixed experiment with pricing condition (proportional pricing, standard pricing; within-subjects) and drink type (lager, red wine, vodka; between-subjects) as manipulated factors. Study 2 (comprising n = 90 participants) was a within-subjects experiment with pricing condition (proportional pricing, standard pricing) and multi-pack type (size difference-only, quantity-difference only, size and quantity difference) as manipulated factors. Participants were UK adult alcohol consumers.
Measurements: We measured outcome variables, including alcohol purchasing (UK units) and proportion of alcohol purchased from smaller products.
Findings: Proportional pricing consistently increased the proportion of alcohol purchased from smaller products [study 1: B = 10.82, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 8.72-12.92; study 2: B = 11.64, 95% CI = 3.50-19.77], indicating a switch to smaller products. However, this did not consistently reduce the total amount of alcohol purchased among drink and product types: proportional pricing reduced the total units purchased from lager multi-packs containing more rather than fewer products (B = -2.56, 95% CI = -4.82 to -0.30), but not from other types of lager multi-packs or single lager products. Proportional pricing also reduced vodka purchasing (B = -3.30, 95% CI = -5.21 to -1.40), but the effect of proportional pricing on wine purchasing was moderated by hazardous drinking (B = -0.11, 95% CI = -0.17 to -0.05).
Conclusions: Alcohol sales policies that require proportional pricing may reduce alcohol purchasing.
Keywords: alcohol; alcohol purchasing; behavioural economics; consumer behaviour; portion size; proportional pricing.
© 2024 The Author(s). Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction.