> Based on a an experiment, they adopted the design that received the most support.

Line just after your quote.

Seems like yes.

Yes. it's the point of the article.

Do you think people are able to feel sympathy for cartoon characters?

Probably not for the cartoons, but we're hard-wired for emotional empathy that depictions of it are eye catching enough to get attention (and then motivate others to action once they understand the purpose of those stickers).

I feel sympathy for the 30 yen that stay in my pocket for sure. But also cute mascots and things are the norm in Japanese marketing.

Does symbolism elicit emotion? I hope that's sarcasm. Let's ask some folks about gold stars and swastika and and and...

People find vtubers worth watching so probably yes

The article misses it off but you can see the evolution of the sticker on the FamilyMart webpage: https://www.family.co.jp/content/dam/family/sustainability/t...

Seeing a character crying on a package certainly doesn't make me want to buy it OR eat it.

I think this sort of small discount is mainly aimed at people who were going to buy the item and eat it immediately regardless. If there's more than one tuna and egg sandwich on the shelf, it doesn't really matter to you which one you buy, but the store would rather you choose the one that expires sooner so they don't have to throw it out.

Its not just the lost sale of the specific out-of-stock items that are at risk in a competitive market though. Over time their customers will notice that frequently one or two items they need are out of stock, but when they go to the competitor to get those missing items, they always have them. So they start shopping at the competitor to begin with and rarely have reason to return to the original store since everything is always in stock. Now the original store has lost most of the sales they used to get from that customer.

It similar to why not offering vegetarian food at a restaurant can have a much larger impact on sales than just the loss of the small number of vegetarian purchases - you loose out on the entire group that came with the vegetarian.

Grant that overordering will often be the correct strategy, economically, since the marginal cost of unloading a few units is low and the damage when customers think you're poorly stocked is high. In a perfect world, they'd discount the extra food instead of throwing it out, but that devalues your stock and people start expecting that as the real price.

Enlisting social cooperation leads to an even better world: the store always have products in stock, and never wastes any, while consumers get to feel the moral satisfaction (not guilt) of cooperating to choose the food that avoids the most waste. Highminded signs about "please choose the earliest expiration date" may give less of that satisfaction than a sticker that makes you feel like you're helping the food.