While the interest in smart shopping carts is growing, both retailers and consumer groups have concerns about how real-time spending feedback will influence shopping behavior. Building on budgeting and spending theories, the authors conduct three lab and grocery store experiments, which robustly...

An estimated one in three American households has to carefully plan their budgets and spend accordingly. Budget-allocation and spending-behavior models often implicitly assume that budget-constrained shoppers are knowledgeable about the total price of their shopping basket as they shop (Bénabou...

Although almost one in three U.S. households shops on a budget, it remains unclear whether and how shoppers track their in-store spending to stay within those budgets. A field study and two laboratory studies offer four key generalizations about budget shoppers in grocery stores: (1) They...