ArticleAddiction (Abingdon, England)2025
The effect of proportional pricing on alcohol purchasing in two online experiments.
Article in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The effect of proportional pricing on alcohol purchasing in two online experiments.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- Commentary on Kersbergen et al.: Same Price, same choices? Proportional pricing and the heaviest drinkers.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsBuying smaller-sized alcohol products can reduce alcohol consumption, but larger products have better value for money, which presents a barrier to switching. We tested whether proportional pricing prompts drinkers to buy smaller alcohol products and reduce alcohol purchasing. DESIGN, SETTING AND
participantsThis study was an online experiment set in the United Kingdom, using hypothetical shopping tasks in which participants purchased different-sized products presented under proportional pricing (i.e. constant price per litre throughout all sizes of the same product) or standard pricing conditions. Study 1 (comprising n = 210 participants) was a mixed experiment with pricing condition (proportional pricing, standard pricing; within-subjects) and drink type (lager, red wine, vodka; between-subjects) as manipulated factors. Study 2 (comprising n = 90 participants) was a within-subjects experiment with pricing condition (proportional pricing, standard pricing) and multi-pack type (size difference-only, quantity-difference only, size and quantity difference) as manipulated factors. Participants were UK adult alcohol consumers. MEASUREMENTS: We measured outcome variables, including alcohol purchasing (UK units) and proportion of alcohol purchased from smaller products.
findingsProportional pricing consistently increased the proportion of alcohol purchased from smaller products [study 1: B = 10.82, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 8.72-12.92; study 2: B = 11.64, 95% CI = 3.50-19.77], indicating a switch to smaller products. However, this did not consistently reduce the total amount of alcohol purchased among drink and product types: proportional pricing reduced the total units purchased from lager multi-packs containing more rather than fewer products (B = -2.56, 95% CI = -4.82 to -0.30), but not from other types of lager multi-packs or single lager products. Proportional pricing also reduced vodka purchasing (B = -3.30, 95% CI = -5.21 to -1.40), but the effect of proportional pricing on wine purchasing was moderated by hazardous drinking (B = -0.11, 95% CI = -0.17 to -0.05).
conclusionsAlcohol sales policies that require proportional pricing may reduce alcohol purchasing.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.