City Research Online

Abstract

Background
Research in real supermarkets can be challenging due to competing health and business agendas. This study used a 2-dimensional (2D) simulated supermarket to investigate whether visual attention to, and intended purchase of, products in prominent store locations (checkout, end-of-aisle, store entrance) differed for healthy, unhealthy or non-food items. The study also explored if these findings were modified by participants’ level of educational attainment.

Methods
Women from Wessex, UK, took part in one of two trials. Phase 1: 201 women completed an online questionnaire in which all participants viewed simulated supermarket journeys depicting healthy, unhealthy and non-food product routes, starting at the store entrance and ending at the checkout, in a random order. Participants clicked on items (i) that they were interested in and then (ii) that they wished to purchase. Phase 2: 71 women participated in an eye-tracking study in which all participants again viewed all journey types, followed by a series of side-by-side preferential looking scenes to allow comparison of attention between the three product types, presented in a random order. Twelve participants took part in semi-structured interviews to better understand their views on what influences product attention; data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results
Phase 1: Participants demonstrated higher attention to food items compared to non-food items but their intention to purchase was higher for healthy foods than both unhealthy and non-food items. Phase 2: there was no difference in attention across product types during the journey task. In the preferential looking task, participants spent more time viewing healthy products than unhealthy or non-food products. Participants also exhibited higher intention to purchase healthy products than unhealthy or non-food items. Interview participants used shopping lists and avoided certain aisles to prevent unhealthy purchases. They wanted to see healthy foods or essential non-food options at prominent store locations.

Conclusions
Women intend to make more healthy purchases than unhealthy purchases when they shop but supermarket strategies to promote less healthy foods in prominent locations in stores may undermine this intent. These findings support the use of prominent positioning of healthier items in stores as a useful strategy to increase healthy sales and support current and planned food policies.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Publisher Keywords:	Food, Food policy, Food retail, 2-dimensional simulated supermarket, Behaviour, Visual attention
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Population Health & Policy
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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