Banning Unsolicited Store Flyers: Does Helping the Environment Hurt Retailing? – MSI

Working Paper

Banning Unsolicited Store Flyers: Does Helping the Environment Hurt Retailing?

Jonne Guyt

University of Amsterdam

Arjen van Lin

Tilburg University

Kristopher Keller

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

May 18, 2023

Analyzes a natural experiment—the successive implementation by seven Dutch municipalities of a ban on unsolicited print store flyers—to determine the impact on sales of requiring consumers to opt-in to continue receiving them.

Topics

research recap

Answering Wanamaker: Opting In to Receive Retail Flyers Cuts Waste, Not Sales

Regulating distribution of retailers’ print flyers might help the environment, but could it harm sales? Requiring consumers to opt in to receive such flyers can be a win-win: households that use them will continue to do so while eliminating the waste—and wasted marketing effort—of unsolicited distribution.

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