# Discounts lead purchase intentions in Taiwan’s near-expiry meat app study

> A survey linked to PX Mart’s app finds a stronger association for price discounts than for app-use intention, but does not establish actual purchases or an optimal markdown.

URL: https://foodradar.org/taiwan-near-expiry-meat-app-discounts-purchase-intentions
Language: en
Author: FoodRadar Editorial
Published: 2026-10-07T11:51:41.510Z
Updated: 2026-10-07T11:51:41.510Z
Source publication date: 2026-07-29
Category: Markets
Türkçe: https://foodradar.org/tr/taiwan-near-expiry-meat-app-discounts-purchase-intentions

## A supermarket app meets a short selling window

A study published in July examines how shoppers respond to near-expiry meat offered through a supermarket app in Taiwan. The setting is PX Mart’s Time-Saving Map, a feature the paper says launched in late 2024 to help shoppers locate products approaching the end of their shelf life. The research concentrates on meat, where a limited selling window makes discounting and safety perceptions particularly relevant.

The strongest relationship with purchase intention in the model concerns price discounts. The finding suggests that the financial proposition matters when shoppers consider these products. It does not establish how many packs were sold through the app, how much waste was prevented or whether a particular discount would deliver an acceptable retail margin.

## The respondents were shown how the app works

Researchers collected questionnaires in Taichung between February and April 2025. Of 494 returned questionnaires, 418 were retained for analysis. Recruitment used convenience sampling at the supermarket’s outlets. Interviewers demonstrated the app interface so that people unfamiliar with it could answer questions about its use and their potential purchases.

That detail changes how the sample should be described. The results are not simply a record of established app customers and their shopping histories. They include responses informed by a demonstration, and the measured outcomes are intentions. The study therefore offers evidence about stated acceptance in one retail setting rather than a transaction-based evaluation of the service.

## Price and practical usefulness stand out

In the structural model, the standardised association between discounts and purchase intention was 0.57, compared with 0.34 for intention to use the app. These are model coefficients, not percentage increases in sales. Ease of use was strongly associated with perceived usefulness, while perceived usefulness was associated with a more favourable attitude towards using the service.

Environmental concern did not have a statistically significant direct association with usage attitude in this model. That result does not show that every environmental message is ineffective: the researchers did not run a controlled comparison of advertising campaigns. It indicates that, among the relationships they measured, general environmental concern did not explain attitude in the way practical usefulness did.

## Safety concerns require a careful reading

The paper also finds a small positive relationship between food safety concern and purchase intention. The authors discuss whether an established retailer’s credibility might help explain this apparently counterintuitive result. However, trust was not directly tested as a moderating variable in the model, and they recommend including it explicitly in future research.

Several commercial questions remain open. The study did not measure the discount thresholds that persuade shoppers to buy, and its single-chain, single-city sample limits transfer to other markets. Near-expiry products are also not the same as products past their permitted use period. This consumer study does not validate a meat product’s safety, cold chain or storage life. Its useful contribution is a clearer account of stated shopping motivations, with transaction and waste outcomes still to be tested.

## Sources and rights

- [Decoding the Drivers of Consumer Choice for Near-Expired Meat in Digital Retailing: Economic Incentives, Food Safety, and Technology Acceptance.](https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13464382?utm_source=foodradar.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=taiwan-near-expiry-meat-app-discounts-purchase-intentions-en). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). Huang WS, Lin CW, Lai KL, Chen HS. Decoding the Drivers of Consumer Choice for Near-Expired Meat in Digital Retailing: Economic Incentives, Food Safety, and Technology Acceptance. Foods (Basel, Switzerland). 2026. DOI: 10.3390/foods15152680. © 2026 by the authors. [CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?utm_source=foodradar.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=taiwan-near-expiry-meat-app-discounts-purchase-intentions-en-license).

Adapted by FoodRadar.

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