Minutes Regarding Order Total Blindness
A condition has been identified in which the consumer adds items to a cart without registering the running total until checkout, at which point the total is final.
Preliminary Findings: Order Total Blindness Issued by the Consumer Behavior Observation Unit, December 2021
I. Presenting Condition
In eleven of fourteen cases reviewed, the consumer expressed surprise at the checkout total despite having added each item individually and in sequence. The items were added with awareness of their individual prices. The running total was visible in the cart throughout the session. The consumer did not look at it until the session was over.
This phenomenon has been designated Order Total Blindness for the purposes of this report.
II. Mechanism
Order Total Blindness is not an attention deficit. The consumer is attentive to the items being selected. They evaluate each item on its individual merits: desirability, price relative to perceived value, whether it fills the purpose intended. The evaluation is conducted at the item level.
The total is a sum. The consumer's attention is not on sums. The consumer's attention is on items.
The total was visible throughout the session. The consumer did not look at it until the session was over.
III. The Checkout Moment
The checkout moment is when Order Total Blindness resolves. The consumer proceeds to checkout and is presented with the total as a single number. The number is accurate. It is also, in the cases examined, higher than the consumer expected.
The consumer's expectation had no basis in calculation. They had not calculated a running total. The expectation was a feeling.
IV. Findings
Finding 1: Individual item price awareness does not produce total awareness. These are separate cognitive activities that do not automatically combine.
Finding 2: The gap between expected total and actual total is consistent across sessions for the same consumer, suggesting that the expectation is not updated by prior experience.
Finding 3: Consumers who experience surprise at the checkout total proceed with the purchase in thirteen of fourteen cases reviewed. The surprise does not function as a decision point. It functions as a notation.
V. Absurd Rule
Checkout totals shall be presented only at checkout, where the consumer has already committed to the items in the cart and has the least rational basis for revising them. This is the current design. It is working as intended.
VI. Contradiction
The interface shows the total throughout the session to help consumers make informed decisions. The total is present. It is not read. It is read at the moment when it can no longer inform a decision.
VII. Status
Preliminary. Further observation is ongoing. Fourteen cases are not sufficient to establish statistical significance, though they are sufficient to establish that the phenomenon exists and has a name.
Formal review has not been scheduled.