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How you time your decisions can make a big difference:
How do decisions made for tomorrow or two days in the future differ from decisions made forseveral days in the future? We use data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and delivery increases, grocery customers spend less, order a higher percentage of “should” items (e.g., vegetables), and order a lower percentage of “want” items (e.g., ice cream), controlling for customer fixed effects. These findings are all consistent with theories suggesting that people’s should selves exert more influence over their choices the further in the future outcomes will be experienced. However, orders placed for delivery tomorrow versus two days in the future do not show this want/should pattern, and we discuss a potential explanation.
Source: “I’ll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time” from Harvard Business School Working Paper 07-078
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