Bargains vs. Nudges

Food price inflation and global geopolitical uncertainties are heightening consumer cost-consciousness and promoting less sustainable consumption behaviours in everyday purchases, particularly in grocery shopping. Hence, online grocery retailers are seeking for strategies to effectively promote ecologically responsible consumption habits while simultaneously increasing the frequency of purchases for specific products. Bringing together insights from both, IS research and marketing research, this study conducts a between-subjects experiment within an e-grocery store, to explore the efficacy of digital nudges emphasizing eco-sustainable product attributes, in comparison to one of the most frequently used economic interventions in consumer behaviour marketing, namely price discounts. The evidence collected from this study demonstrates the individual effectiveness of digital nudges as well as price discounts in the context of e-grocery, particularly highlighting the superior impact of digital default nudges in terms of purchase frequency, surpassing that of price discounts.