Consumer Responses to Favorite Product Removal: Evidence from Beverage Vending Machines

How do consumers react when their favorite product is removed? This paper sheds light on this question by using a novel dataset of vending machine purchases in Japanese train stations and a synthetic difference-in-differences approach. We find that for regular consumers, the removal of their favorite product would lead them to reduce their purchases in their favorite vending machine; however, we also find that it has no impact on their overall purchases at their favorite station. Our micro-level data show that some consumers stay with their favorite machine and buy something else; among those who leave their favorite machine, a large proportion of them are willing to visit other machines. We hypothesize that variety-seeking tendency may explain such heterogeneous consumer responses. Using four different measures of variety-seeking, we show that high variety-seeking consumers tend to stay with their favorite machine, and low variety-seeking consumers are more likely to visit other machines to try to find their favorite product.