Shopping Science Fair Project Ideas

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There's a lot of research that goes into the ways stores sell and market goods. You could combine shopping and science for a science fair project. (image credit Caden Crawford)
There’s a lot of research that goes into the ways stores sell and market goods. You could combine shopping and science for a science fair project. (credit Caden Crawford)

You may think shopping and science have little to do with each other, but there is actually quite a lot of science behind store lay-outs, product packaging, advertising, etc. Here are some shopping science fair project ideas you could use as the basis for an experiment:

Shopping Science Fair Projects

  • Do shoppers prefer to shop on a specific day of the week?
  • What day do ads come out? What day or time of day do people browse flyers?
  • Do people exhibit a preference for which direction they go upon entering a store? Do men and women behave similarly? Does it matter whether you are right or left-handed? Does your country of origin (e.g., which side of the road you drive on) appear to come into play?
  • Do people buy products that are on “sale” for the same price (or higher) as they are normally sold or do they notice the price isn’t discounted?
  • Do shoppers exhibit a preference for one check-out lane over another?
  • Does cart size affect the number of products a shopper buys?
  • How uniform is the age distribution of shoppers at a store throughout the day? throughout the week?
  • Are there an equal number of men and women shopping? Does the type of store make a difference?
  • Can you make any generalizations about the type of projects found at eye level in a store?

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