Abstract

Consumers’ Food Choice has been researched in the past, but as a result of advances in mobile technologies such as barcode scanning, new possibilities of obtaining additional product information emerged. As a result, present day consumers use their mobile devices to reduce information asymmetries and make more informed choices by supporting their buying decisions with additional information at the Point of Sale (PoS). This raises the question about the impact of Mobile Product Information Systems (MPIS) on consumers’ food choices. Since most MPIS are not provided by producers of the food themselves, there is a risk that consumers no longer base their decisions on information provided on the product packaging, but instead on mobile information of third party service providers. To gain empirical insights about consumers’ information seeking behaviour a research model is proposed and tested in a within-subject experiment with repeated-measures design with 665 participants. The results reveal that MPIS impact consumers’ perceived food quality and perceived price in both directions, positive and negative, dependent on the presented information. However, purchase intention is only affected negatively confirming a risk for food producing companies by MPIS of third party providers.

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