New research suggests recent consumption has an outsized effect on what people buy next, especially when uncertainty is high.

My kids love goin’ to Costco, especially when they know there’ll be lots of sample stations.

For them, it’s part shopping trip, part entertainment, part snack time.

For brands, it can be serious business.

I’ve had clients sampling at Costco tell me some version of the same thing: “When we’re sampling, sales are brisk. When we’re not, totally different.”

A new study helps explain why.

Researchers combined purchase scanner data with consumption diaries from 3,770 households and found that recent consumption had a significant positive effect on which brand people chose next, above and beyond purchase history.

That’s a huge behavioural change.

Buying a product gives you one batch of information: price, promotion, packaging, availability.

And simply consuming it gives you another set: taste, texture, smell, satisfaction.

Those consumption memories can be vivid and easy to retrieve, which becomes especially valuable when shoppers are not quite sure.

The researchers found that recent consumption had a stronger influence when the brand was more expensive, when household budgets were tighter (like now), and when shoppers had less prior experience with the brand.

Makes intuitive sense, huh?

When money is tight, the cost of making a bad choice rises, and you feel it.

A shopper who recently tried the product has a ready-made piece of evidence:

I know this. I liked it. I know what I’m getting.

That hugely reduces the perceived risk of buying.

The study also estimated that a one-standard-deviation increase in recent brand consumption increased average brand-choice probability by 10.2%, a larger absolute effect than price, budget constraint or brand experience.

There’s some real-world evidence pointing in the same direction.

Walmart Canada recently reported results across five grocery sampling campaigns.

During those campaigns, the brands averaged a 470% sales lift and a 284% increase in new-to-brand customers. Sales were still up an average of 13% one to three months later!

That doesn’t surprise me.

Sampling does something advertising just can’t. It converts a claim into an experience.

And when people are worried about wasting money, their own experience can carry more weight than packaging, ad copy or promotional claims.

One of the ideas I dig into in I Need That is how customers need a lot of confidence to make a change in what they use. Sampling is one of the most direct ways to build that confidence because it reduces the cost of being wrong to pretty much ZERO.

And if the product delivers, the memory of that experience reduces uncertainty the next time the shopper is standing in front of the shelf.

That’s be why my clients see such a dramatic difference when the sample table is churning stuff out.

The free bite might create the sale in that moment, AND the next one too!

If you’d like help creating and marketing products people feel compelled to buy, the product marketing consultants at Graphos Product can help.