Introduction

In recent decades, one of the key problems of manufacturing companies is the knowledge of how the
consumers will respond to various factors that they will use in order to achieve their ultimate goal – the
biggest profit. The study of consumer’s behavior has become a concern of marketing specialists, because
they can learn how buyers choose their goods and services required to meet their multiple needs, which
are the stimuli that influence their choice. The increasing complexity of economic life led to
understanding the mechanism of human economic behaviour, which is becoming larger and more
complicated, requiring a separate study for the two intrinsic components: the behaviour of the human
as producer as goods and services and his behaviour as consumer. For the contemporary society, where
the scientific and technical progress tends, in many fields, to replace the producer-man with the
producer-machine, the study of the consumption behaviour becomes very important and significant,
especially since rare resources with alternative uses which human society has at its disposal require the
production only of those goods and services that meet the needs in the needed quantities. Therefore,
understanding and explaining consumer and purchase behaviour has become a necessity, and ignoring
its means of manifestation, causes serious imbalance. Also, under considerable conditions of supply
diversification, consumers have wide choice. On the other hand, increased purchasing power,
simultaneous with raising the level of education and culture enables the purchaser to satisfy even more
needs, more sophisticated and of a higher quality level, aspects that are compulsory for the producer to
take into account, in order to meet consumers desires. Studying the consumer behaviour enables a
broader and more complex characterization of market phenomena, the development of more realistic
strategies and the deployment of effective marketing actions.

Ever felt the sting of shame at ordering something unhealthy? Or asked for a product out of worry you
might mispronounce the tongue-twisting alternative you really wanted? New research from Duke
University’s Fuqua School of Businesssuggests ordering without social interaction influences the choices
we make.

Professor Ryan McDevitt found that customers place unhealthier and more complicated pizza orders
when they can do so online, without interacting with a clerk. He also saw sales of hard-to-pronounce
items increase after liquor stores in Sweden introduced automated ordering.

“If you don’t talk to anyone,” McDevitt said, “it changes your behavior.”

McDevitt worked with Avi Goldfarb and Brian Silverman of the University of Toronto, andSampsa
Samila of the National University of Singapore. Their findings, “The Effect of Social Interaction on
Economic Transactions: Evidence from Changes in Two Retail Formats,” is forthcoming in the
journal Management Science.

The researchers studied more than 160,000 orders placed by more than 56,000 customers at a North
Carolina pizza chain between July 2007 and December 2011. They found the online orders included 14
percent more special instructions – combining or dividing toppings – and contained an average of about
100 calories more than phone orders.

Previous research has found fear of embarrassment influences social interaction. The researchers
concluded that self-service affects ordering habits by removing that potential, McDevitt said. Customers
were freed from concern about negative reactions to what they ordered – triple bacon, for instance – or
how long it took to place an order with multiple special requirements.

“Online, you’re not making anyone wait while you place your special order,” he said. “No one’s judging
you.”

The team found similar results in another context by studying liquor stores in Sweden that introduced
self-service. They examined more than a million transactions at 14 stores in Sweden from 1988 to 1996.
The stores variously installed automated purchase stations between 1991 and 1995.

The researchers found the market share of the products that were hardest to pronounce increased by
8.4 percent when stores changed to self-service.

“Though the available choices are the same,” McDevitt said, “The social transaction is removed.”

In order for consumers to shop at an Amazon Go store, the consumer must first create an Amazon
account, have a smart phone, and download the Amazon Go app. Once these items are in place, the
customer scans their Amazon Go app, located on their smartphone, upon entering the retail store. At
this point, the customer is free to walk around the store, shop, and add and replace items to or from
their virtual cart [1]. In order for Amazon Go to accomplish this paradigmatic shift in the operational
model of retail shopping, it relies heavily on technological innovation. The technology Amazon Go uses
automatically senses when an item is picked up, put back on the shelf, and who committed the action.
Once the customer is satisfied with the items they’ve chosen, they simply walk out the door - no lines,
no checkouts, and no waiting. The purchased items are charged to the customer’s Amazon account and
a receipt is sent to the Amazon Go app [1].

Amazon Go uses what they call, “Just Walk Out Technology”. This technology is responsible for keeping
track of items taken from, and in some cases, returned to, the store’s shelves. It also keeps track of the
individual’s virtual cart [1]. For this to be possible, Amazon uses technology similar to that of self-driving
cars. 28 the system relies heavily on sensor fusion, computer vision, and deep learning algorithms [1].
While they haven’t revealed too much about their technological advancement, it appears that Amazon
plans on making cameras central to their operational strategy. These cameras will track not only the
products and their placement, but also the individuals who do the shopping [17].