The Virtual Supermarket: an innovative research tool to study food purchasing behaviour

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Instructions for installing the Virtual Supermarket

  1. The Virtual Supermarket program can be opened from the location where you saved it.

  2. If you opened the Virtual Supermarket folder, you should see this screen:

    folder


  3. The program contains 2 main folders: 'Data' and 'Virtual Supermarket'. The data folder contains all the required files for the application, including for example the price, questionnaire, and product files, as well as the individual shopping results. Please, do not make any changes to the contents of these folders.

  4. The Virtual Supermarket icon starts the actual application. You can enter the Virtual Supermarket by a double mouse click on the icon. Subsequently, you will see the next screen:

    graphics


  5. In this screen you can alter the screen resolution and graphics quality. You can use the standard settings. Next, you see the option 'Windowed'. Please thick this option to open the Virtual Supermarket in a smaller screen (recommended!). If you do not opt for 'windowed' the Virtual Supermarket opens full screen, which means that you are not easily able to switch to other applications on your computer.

  6. To start the Virtual Supermarket, choose 'Play!'. Next you'll see this screen:

    play

    In this screen participants are asked to fill in their personal code. This personal code starts with an alphabetic letter, followed by one or two digits.

  7. Choose a number within the range A700 - A1000 to enter the Virtual Supermarket then press 'start'

  8. This will bring up the following screen:

    age

    In this screen, participants are requested to fill in their household composition. The four answer categories stand for:
    - Number of adults
    - Number of children aged 0 - 3 years
    - Number of children aged 4 - 12 years
    - Number of children aged 13 - 17 years

    This question is used to calculate the purchase budget the participant will receive in the experiment.
    Please fill in your household composition, and then press 'Doorgaan' (continue)


  9. Now, you have entered the Virtual Supermarket!! This is the first view:

    start


  10. Your budget is shown at the right top of the screen:

    budget


  11. Prices are shown beneath each product and are given in Euros. You can also see a blue information sign at the right side of the price label. You can use this sign to watch the food label. When you click on the sign, the information will appear at the bottom left of your screen:

    info




Controls


Grocery list:
At the bottom of the screen, you can see the word 'Lijst' (List). This option will show you your shopping list, containing the items you have put in your shopping cart so far. You can also use this function to remove items from your cart.

Moving through the supermarket:
You can move through the supermarket by using the cursor keys, or the WSDA keys

Selecting a food item:
You can select food items by clicking on them with a left mouse click. The product will then appear in your shopping cart. You can look into your cart by using the mouse. Hold the left mouse key, and then move your mouse carefully (and the product will also appear on the list).

Paying for the groceries:
The cash decks are located in the back of the supermarket. If you are finished grocery shopping, you can walk aside a cash desk. The application than asks if you would like to pay (no real money). If you click 'Ja' (Yes) you leave the Virtual Supermarket and will subsequently enter a questionnaire. If you click 'Nee' (No) you will stay in the Virtual Supermarket. You are only able to leave the Virtual Supermarket if you did not exceed your budget.

Questionnaire:
After finishing grocery shopping, participants will automatically move into the questionnaire section. This section includes questions from the Food Choice Questionnaire (Steptoe et al., 1995), Price Perception Construct Scale Items (Lichtenstein et al. 1993), Habit Strength (Verplancken et al., 2003), and other relevant background variables. It also asks participants about their experiences regarding the Virtual Supermarket and whether their virtual groceries are similar to their regular groceries.

Since the questionnaire is in Dutch, it might be best to end the application here. In the regular procedure, when participants have filled in all the questions, they can click a finish button. After that, their data are automatically sent to our university web server.