Retailing has primarily been about offering variety and choice to customers. The Retailers and the CPG industry thrives on this basic need of shop keeping. The concept of Malls also thrived because of this need where competitive players opened shops next to each other in order to give choice to the customers and thereby increase the overall footfalls.
Now interestingly this theory has been proven to be right by our most ancient forefathers – the monkeys !!!
Italian scientists say they've found monkeys, given a choice of their favorite food or choosing from a variety of options, will opt for variety.And we have also followed their footsteps
Duke University scientists led by Professor Dan Ariely said the choices made by the captive-bred capuchin monkeys in Italy's Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies seem to show some innate desire to seek variety.
In a series of experiments Ariely conducted with his Italian colleagues in Rome, eight monkeys were taught they could use different tokens to buy one piece of their most-preferred food, or to buy one piece from an assortment of foods that included the most-preferred food.
The findings are expected to shed light on human consumer behavior, since earlier work on human variety-seeking found people eat 43 percent more M&M candies when there are 10 colors in a bowl instead of just seven.
So Retailers worldwide have nothing to worry as long as we all behave like monkeys !!
