Menu price presentation influences on consumer purchase behavior in restaurants

Empirical research on menu design and price presentation thus far has focused primarily on attitudinal affects on consumers and not necessarily on actual purchase behavior. This experiment uses price presentation manipulations to determine what price formats may affect consumer purchase behavior. Overall, price presentation was not found to be a significant predictor of consumer spending in an upscale restaurant environment. However, results did show a significant reduction in spending when formats with monetary cues such as the word “dollars” or the symbol “$” were used. In addition, no significant spending differences between numerical and scripted presentation formats were found.