Time-of-Day Effects On The Purchase Of (Un)healthy Products

Due to the development of society and the impact of the epidemic in recent years,people’s health problems are increasingly concerned by individuals and various fields of society.One way to improve people’s eating habits and nutritional intake,and to find ways to persuade consumers to buy healthier and less unhealthy products,is to determine the relationship between time-of-day and consumer purchases of healthy products.Based on the literature review and analysis of time-of-day,self-control,visual attention and product purchase,this paper constructs a theoretical model among several players,and mainly discusses four questions:(1)whether time-of-day will affect the level of self-control of consumers;(2)whether the level of self-control of consumers will affect the purchase of healthy and unhealthy products;(3)whether and how the level of self-control of consumers affects visual attention to healthy and unhealthy products;(4)and if it affects visual attention,will it affect consumers’ purchase of healthy and unhealthy products?First,a field research based on the POS data shows that consumers tend to buy more unhealthy products in the evening.Second,results from two laboratory experiments suggest that this is because consumers have less self-control at night,leading them to buy more unhealthy products at this time.Finally,the eye-tracking experiments shed further light on the underlying mechanism whereby lower self-control leads consumers to focus more on unhealthy products and weakens the impact of a focus on healthy products on purchases.The results provide marketing scholars,retailers and consumer marketing firms with valuable insights into consumer behavior and marketing decisions.