Messaging and Tangible Donations in a Supermarket Setting

Last registered on October 29, 2019
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Messaging and Tangible Donations in a Supermarket Setting
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004894
Initial registration date
October 29, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 29, 2019, 2:43 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region
Norfolk

Primary Investigator

Name
Rhosyn Almond
Affiliation
University of East Anglia
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-10-04
End date
2019-12-19
Keywords
Welfare
Additional Keywords
donation behaviour
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This research aims to use a field experiment to investigate whether reminders to donate at the time of purchase can affect the number and type of in-kind charitable donations made to a local food provision organisation, and to see how these effects change over time. The signs use messaging which makes the local aspect of the recipients salient.
A commonly cited reason for not donating to the FoodBank is that visitors to a supermarket forget to make a donation until they have already reached the end of their shopping and paid for their items. In conjunction with key items not being donated, this leaves great room for improvement in the type and level of donations made to the FoodBank. FoodBanks receive around half of their total donations from donation points in supermarkets, so getting this element of their strategy right would have large effects on their overall stock levels.
The use of shelf level signs to remind individuals to purchase an item for donation during their shop, and highlight which items are most needed, would appear to solve these two barriers to donation. These have been trialled in some stores in the UK, but as of yet the effect of these signs on donation rates has not been investigated.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Almond, Rhosyn . 2019. "Messaging and Tangible Donations in a Supermarket Setting." AEA RCT Registry. October 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4894-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
There are two treatments in this intervention. They take place in 18 local grocery stores which collect donations for the local FoodBank. 6 are assigned to each arm, and 6 to the baseline control group. The treatments involve highlighting which items are most needed by the Norwich FoodBank with the use of shelf level labelling and posters. The resulting donations made in store are measured weekly for the 10 week duration of the intervention. The percentage of donations of the highlighted item types will be compared between stores to find the effect of the treatment.
Intervention Start Date
2019-10-10
Intervention End Date
2019-12-19

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The percentage of 'treated' or "most-needed" items that are donated each week. The overall donation level (in weight, £, and number of items).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This experiment is a randomised control experiment. It is unblinded, however the subjects will not know that they are in an experiment as they are likely to only shop at one of the branches. There are 2 Treatments and one control group. It is a between groups design - each store is exposed to only one treatment for the duration of the experiment.

Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomisation is done through the use of a Python code with a set seed and is replicable.

Block randomisation was used on three variables. The three variables were: local income (a proxy measure for this is used: the percentage of free school meals recipients in the nearest primary or infant school); store characteristics (the presence of a Post Office or a Subway inside the store - this could affect footfall); accessibility of donation point (whether the donation basket was located after the checkout, or requires a customer to double back on their journey out of the store). There are guiding hypotheses for these three variables leading to the use of them in the blocking randomisation.
Randomization Unit
Individual Store
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Individual Stores
Sample size: planned number of observations
900 "most needed item" weekly totals. (18 stores, 5 items per store, for 10 weeks)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
6 grocery stores per arm, 3 arms. 1 arm control, 2 arms of treatments.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
School of Economics Research Ethics Committee, University of East Anglia
IRB Approval Date
2019-09-11
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials