Since price discounts are costly and can negatively affect consumers' perceptions of quality, it is crucial to identify the factors that make them effective in stimulating purchase behavior. Drawing ...on cue utilization theory, we examine price discount effectiveness in affecting consumers' reliance on the sale cue based on the provided product touch information as an intrinsic cue and individual consumer differences in sale proneness. Two experimental studies indicate that price discount information, product touch information, and sale proneness interact to determine consumers' responses. Perceived quality is the underlying mechanism behind the observed effects. For nonsale‐prone consumers, product touch information favorably influences responses to large price discounts by addressing product quality concerns and enhancing purchase confidence, but has no effect for regularly priced or low discounted products. For sale‐prone consumers, product touch information is not effective in increasing their responses regardless of the discount size. A qualitative study provides support for these results and highlights the role of perceived quality and purchase confidence. The research contributes to behavioral pricing, cue utilization theory, and sensory marketing and suggests that marketing managers should provide consumers with product touch information when implementing high discounts for products for which prepurchase touch is important.
This study investigates consumers’ sharing of social coupons, a novel and understudied marketing strategy in which a consumer receives a coupon set where one coupon is meant to be kept and redeemed, ...while the other is meant to be shared with a secondary recipient. Linking the literature on marketing promotions, social influence, sharing motivations, and consumer characteristics, we examine how identification of a specific secondary recipient (e.g., family member vs. co‐worker) and coupon discount structure (e.g., equal discount for both the sharer and the secondary recipient vs. a structure favoring one of the parties) affect social coupon sharing. Four experimental studies demonstrate that consumers are more likely to share social coupons when socially close to the identified recipient and when discount structure benefits the secondary recipient due to enhanced feelings of altruism. These effects are particularly impactful for individuals low in market mavenism, whereas individuals high in market mavenism share regardless. These findings enhance theories on behavioral pricing, social influence, and sharing motivations. Results indicate that current practices in the marketplace may not all be strategically sound and that practitioners should carefully consider how identification and discount structure are employed to maximize social coupon sharing.
Consumers frequently use mobile phones in a store to search for external information as an alternative to consulting with frontline employees. Mobile phone usage is especially prevalent among young ...consumers. Drawing on qualitative study results and existing literature, we conceptualize the effects of different in‐store information sources on choice overload, responsibility, and confidence among young consumers, as well as the moderating role of product category knowledge. A field experiment suggests that when knowledge is low, consulting with frontline employees (vs. mobile phone) leads to lower choice overload and, consequently, increases choice confidence. When knowledge is high, these beneficial effects are attenuated. At the same time, young consumers perceive greater choice responsibility when their phone is the information source; however, this does not influence choice confidence. This work contributes to extant literature by extending the knowledge of customer experience at the point of sale, the role of technology usage in in‐store retailing, and the role of frontline employees as an information source. It also provides managerial implications for retailers by highlighting the importance of providing an opportunity for an in‐person frontline employee interaction especially when customers have low product category knowledge.
The growth of online daily deal price promotions and the resulting consumer nonredemption of daily deal coupons is worthy of understanding from a psychological lens of nonconsumption. Whereas there ...is an emerging literature on daily deals and established literature on barriers to redemption, there exists a gap in where this scholarship intersects. This study provides a conceptual model explaining why consumers purchase daily deal coupons and do not redeem them. We explain consumers’ reasons for buying a daily deal upfront along with their reasons for not using it from theoretical lenses of reasons theory and social motivations theory. On testing the model empirically with qualitative and deepening insight via quantitative methods, the findings reveal that reasons for purchasing daily deals are rooted in individual consumer‐level factors (i.e., price‐consciousness, buying impulsiveness, and susceptibility to interpersonal normative influence). Further, reasons for nonredemption are explained by contextual elements of the daily deal (i.e., offer distinctiveness, the total number of daily deals sold, restrictions on using the deal, and low discount size). Our findings suggest that post‐purchase regret ultimately explains a key reason deals go unused. Marketing implications are offered in the areas of characteristics of daily deal offers.
Drawing on the theoretical foundation of obsessive‐compulsive spectrum disorder, this article develops an expanded conceptualization and new measure of consumers’ proclivity to buy compulsively. ...Compulsive buying is defined as a consumer’s tendency to be preoccupied with buying that is revealed through repetitive buying and a lack of impulse control over buying. This measure includes dimensions of both obsessive‐compulsive and impulse‐control disorders. By measuring income‐dependent items or consequences of compulsive buying separately from the compulsive‐buying scale, we develop a measure that has a strong theoretical foundation, well‐documented psychometric properties, and an ability to be applied to general consumer populations.
Abstract The peer‐to‐peer (P2P) sharing economy, as an attractive alternative to permanent ownership, creates a triadic relationship among three groups of participants: service enablers, providers, ...and consumers. One of its main features is the expansion of the user's role to the roles of consumer and provider, or “prosumer.” However, in their role as prosumers, individuals may have an aversion to participating in the P2P sharing economy market due to their sense of powerlessness and lack of control, suggesting that their vulnerability needs to be considered. Despite their importance, prosumers have not received commensurate attention in the sharing economy literature. To address this gap, we examined prosumer vulnerability's impact on risk perceptions in the role of prosumer and illuminated these risks' impact on intentions to participate. The results from a U.S. survey indicate that vulnerability is a significant driver of all risk types, for both consumers and providers. Furthermore, psychological risk and security risk are found to significantly decrease intention to participate. Unexpectedly, social risk increases intention to participate among consumers and providers, while privacy and health risks are insignificant.
Services that let customers access goods, such as car-sharing, are gaining increasing relevance as an alternative to ownership. These access-based services allow consumers to avoid the "burdens of ...ownership", i.e., risks and responsibilities that come with owning a good. However, the interplay between consumers' risk perception of ownership, access-based service usage, and the subsequent decision to reduce or forgo ownership has not been sufficiently investigated. Based on risk perception theory, we hypothesize the effects of different risk dimensions (financial, performance, social) on the intensity of access-based service usage, as well as the latter's influence on ownership reduction. Using a unique dataset that links survey and actual usage data of car-sharing users, we test four corresponding hypotheses. The results reveal that access-based service usage is positively influenced by all three ownership risk perceptions. Moreover, a higher usage of an access-based service increases the likelihood that consumers subsequently reduce ownership.
Despite placing items in virtual shopping carts, online shoppers frequently abandon them —an issue that perplexes online retailers and has yet to be explained by scholars. Here, we identify key ...drivers to online cart abandonment and suggest cognitive and behavioral reasons for this non-buyer behavior. We show that the factors influencing consumer online search, consideration, and evaluation play a larger role in cart abandonment than factors at the purchase decision stage. In particular, many customers use online carts for entertainment or as a shopping research and organizational tool, which may induce them to buy at a later session or via another channel. Our framework extends theories of online buyer and non-buyer behavior while revealing new inhibitors to buying in the Internet era. The findings offer scholars a broad explanation of consumer motivations for cart abandonment. For retailers, the authors provide suggestions to improve purchase conversion rates and multi-channel management.
This research proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model of consumers' response to online daily deal promotions. A unique feature of such promotions is their social influence, as they provide ...information about how many others have already purchased the offer. Integrating cue utilization and social influence theories, the model outlines how the social cue about the number of deals purchased by others influences consumers' deal evaluations and purchase intentions across a variety of conditions. The research findings indicate that the number of deals as an extrinsic cue affects consumers' deal evaluations and intentions only when intrinsic product and deal cues (good vs. service, discount size) and consumer personal characteristics (familiarity with the provider) are not present or are insufficient to infer deal attractiveness. The research offers managerial implications with respect to effectively designing and promoting online daily deals.
•We study consumer response to number of deals purchased in daily deal promotions.•Number of deals purchased influences individual and social deal evaluations.•Number of deals serves as an extrinsic cue.•It influences consumer response when other cues are not available or sufficient.•We offer implications with respect to designing and promoting daily deals.
Purpose
Although much research focuses on the compulsive buying behavior theory, little attention has been paid to evaluation and diagnosis of compulsive buying in Eastern Europe. This is surprising, ...given an increasing prevalence of consumerism in many transitioning economies. Young consumers are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to adapt the Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale to the Eastern European, specifically Polish cultural and language environment, and to validate it within a group of young Polish consumers, as well to assess the compulsive buying prevalence and the relationship between the compulsive buying and its precursors.
Design/methodology/approach
The Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale was selected for adaptation to the Polish context as it represents one of the best methodological and substantive compulsive buying measures in literature. The research is composed of two studies. Study 1 uses an in-person survey of young consumers (N = 504). A wide range of statistical procedures and latent variable modeling was used in the analysis. Study 2 (N = 756) uses an online survey to evaluate the correlation and relationship between the compulsive buying measure and its precursors, including consumers’ traits and states, by implementing a multiple indicators and multiple causes model.
Findings
The results of the two studies confirm that the adapted scale represents a valid and reliable measure of compulsive buying tendency in Poland, with the identified incidence rate of compulsive buying among Polish young consumers ranging from 11% in Study 1 to 11.6% in Study 2. In comparison with the results of other studies using the same measure, the current research findings reveal a similarity with the compulsive buying prevalence in China (10.4%; He et al., 2018), Brazil (9.8%; Leite et al., 2013) and slightly exceed the level found in western societies (e.g. 8.9% in the USA; Ridgway et al., 2008). The results of Study 2 indicate that compulsive buying in Poland is induced by low self-esteem and high levels of materialism, depression, anxiety, stress and negative feelings.
Research limitations/implications
The present research offers a methodological and substantive contribution by adapting and testing the original version of the Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale within an Eastern European transitional market; specifically Poland. In addition, the study offers an empirical contribution to the international research on compulsive behavior, including its precursors, as seen in young consumers.
Practical implications
This research offers important public policy implications and highlights ethical implications for business organizations. In particular, the findings of this study offer suggestions for enhancing policies and processes of programing appropriate social and educational campaigns that can save young consumers from the negative consequences of compulsive buying.
Originality/value
The transitional status of the Polish economy and other Eastern European countries has given rise to compulsive buying behavior, especially among young consumers. This emerging consumer behavior trend in Eastern Europe is still underexplored and underreported; hence, there exists a strong need for exploring and measuring such behavior across different Eastern European markets.