Picky, picky: Consumers tend to reject 'contaminated' merchandise

Did you ever notice how shoppers often thumb through magazines, but when it comes to making a purchase, they never pick the one at the front of the rack? The reason is perceived "product contamination." A W. P. Carey School of Business marketing professor was among a group of researchers interested in exploring the phenomenon of product contamination and the costs to retailers. Their findings confirmed that consumers are significantly less likely to buy an item they believe was touched by other consumers. The results, the researchers say, should hold obvious interest for retailers and merchandisers, who probably lose an untold amount of money each year due to product contamination.

When Andrea Morales goes shopping for breakfast cereal, she's looking for more than just her favorite brand. She's looking for the right box. Preferably, one without any visible blemishes. Or evidence that anyone else has ever touched it.

"Yes, I'm the person who reaches five boxes back," says Morales, "for the box without any bent corners."

Eventually, Morales began to wonder how many other people had the same habit – and what that habit, multiplied many times over, could mean for retailers trying to sell those beat-up products.

So Morales, an assistant professor of marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business, joined two colleagues in first-ever study that examined how consumers react to so-called "contaminated" products – products that have been soiled not with actual stains or real flaws, but have been tainted, in the minds of customers, simply because the products appear to have been touched by other customers.

"Nobody picks up the top magazine in the rack," Morales says. "They always pick up one of the ones underneath. We all have stories about how we do this, but then again, nobody had actually gone out and documented it."

Specifically, Morales and her co-authors – Jennifer Argo of the University of Alberta and Darren Dahl of the University of British Columbia – were interested in the way different levels of contamination affected both customers' overall interest in buying the product as well as how much they were willing to pay for it. What they found – that consumers are significantly less likely to buy an item they believe to be contaminated – holds important lessons for both major retailers and mom-and-pop storefronts alike.

"The lesson is that we [as consumers] don't like one person touching an item," Morales says, "and we really don't like 10 people touching it."

A touching paradox

Though Morales and her colleagues are the first to look at "consumer contamination" – they coined the term for the first time in this paper – in a marketing context, the relevance of "touching" to the buying experience has been explored before.

Consumers may want to think that the item they take home was untouched by human hands, yet, paradoxically, most want to handle the item before they buy.

In the bestselling book "Why We Buy," Paco Underhill discussed the tendency of shoppers to open packages in order to examine them more closely, as well as their apparent unwillingness to buy any product that looks to have been examined the same way by somebody else. And other researchers have shown being able to touch products has a positive effect on shoppers' attitudes toward them: Some researchers have even posed the idea that online shopping's rise has been slowed for the very reason that shoppers can't "feel" the objects they are about to buy.

Morales and her colleagues intuited that their idea of consumer contamination -- which they defined, simply, as "contamination from consumer touching" -- could have strong negative effects for retailers. The only question for the team was how to prove it. "It's a nonconscious effect," Morales said. "Consumers wouldn't be able to articulate that [on a survey]. We knew we wanted people to actually try on something, and make it realistic."

Fortunately, Morales and her colleagues found a willing partner in the campus bookstore of the University of Alberta, which allowed the team to conduct their real-life experiment, using real-life shoppers, right on the premises.

For the study, a group of participants were asked to visit the store and then complete a predetermined task, which they were told they would find enclosed in an envelope. Unbeknownst to each participant, they all had the same task: They had try on one specific t-shirt. When they approached a sales assistant about the shirt in question, they were also given the same answer: "We only have one left in stock."

Then things got interesting. The team added three variables to the process in order to test customer reaction to different levels of contamination, based on the proximity to previous contact, time elapsed since contact, and the number of contact sources:

• In the "close" contamination scenario, the sales associate informed the customer that somebody else was trying the shirt on. The associate then took the customer to a dressing room, where they waited while the contaminating customer exited the dressing room, leaving the shirt behind.
• For "medium" contamination, the customer was told the shirt was "over here on the return rack," and was guided by the sales associate to that location, where the shirt hung.
• For the "far" scenario, the customer was merely told the shirt "is just over here on the rack" and taken to a regular display rack located a few feet away from the return rack.

At no point did the customer see anyone else – either the sales associate or the other customer – actually touch the shirt.

"We made sure, in all the cases, that the shirt was always brand-new and fresh," Morales said. "And even though it was in the dressing room, it was the exact same shirt as what was on the floor."

Still, despite the fact that the shirt was perfectly fine, the results were resoundingly clear: Once customers realized the shirt had been contaminated, they were turned off – and the more obvious the contamination, the more turned off they were.

According to the team, "when consumers receive a signal that another consumer has touched a product, they lower both their evaluations and purchase intentions for that product."

"Interestingly, consumers never actually observed other people touching the product, but instead contact was inferred through the contamination cue of proximity to contact," they wrote. "In particular, when the product was located closer to the perceived point of contact, consumers' evaluations of and purchase intentions for the product were lower."

The team went so far as to label the feelings of these shoppers toward the contaminated product as "disgust."

"All of the effects were shown to be negative in this paper," Morales said. "The closer and the more recent the contact, the lower the ratings of the shirt."

Containing contamination

The results, says Morales, should hold obvious interest for retailers and merchandisers, who probably lose an untold amount of money each year due to product contamination. And while there's little merchandisers can do to change customers' impressions of contaminated items, they can take steps to limit losses, the researchers say.

Managers should allow customers to touch products, but also limit the number of touchable products by using well-designed shelves instead of large bins. The design and maintenance of changing rooms is important – stores should be careful not to leave previously tried-on clothing hanging in those areas. And stores should also avoid leaving signs of contamination, such as ripped price tags or piles of unfolded clothing.

Service is also a big factor: The researchers say good employees can quickly get rid of incriminating evidence that might turn off potential buyers. Morales cites Banana Republic, Nordstrom's and Best Buy among the companies that do a good job in this regard, though she also says many others don't.

Which, to Morales, is surprising: By ignoring their customers' feelings about these tainted products, these companies could be leaving money on the table.

"We don't have any numbers on the impact of damaged goods and returned goods, but we know in general that companies lose money on these damaged and returned items," she said.

When a product is returned, the researchers recommend putting a fresh price tag on it, so consumers don't know it went home and came back. But retailers might boost sales if they analyzed this phenomenon on a deeper level – even to the point of dressing room design.

Bottom line:

• Consumers want to think that the item they take home was untouched by human hands, yet, paradoxically, most want to handle the item before they buy.
• Once customers realize a product has been contaminated, they are turned off – and the more obvious the contamination, the more turned off they are.
• Retailers can take steps to limit losses, the researchers say.