Early adopters of new supermarket products

ABSTRACT

New goods and expanding product variety are thought to provide enormous welfare gains. New products can influence the pricing of competing products, but often the most important way that new products improve the welfare is through their direct consumption value. The demographic profile of the buyers of new goods suggests those welfare gains are unequally distributed. For supermarket products in the US, expenditures on new goods are disproportionately concentrated among high earners and younger consumers.

KEYWORDS:

• New products
• product adoption
• consumer spending

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D12
• M31

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ IRI is one of the two major vendor of scanner data in the United States along with Nielsen. Pacesetters include the list of top new products at the brand level screened by sales ($7.5 million per year) and national distribution (30%).