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.
The present study investigates consumer responses to price-matching guarantees (PMGs) in the Internet environment and contrasts them with their responses in a traditional bricks-and-mortar retail ...environment. The effect of store reputation on consumer responses to price-matching policies is also investigated in both Internet and bricks-and-mortar retail settings. Two studies using a 2×2×2 between-subjects full factorial experimental design with two levels of PMG presence (PMG present, PMG absent), two levels of retail environment (Internet, bricks-and-mortar), and two levels of store reputation (no/low reputation, high reputation) were conducted. In study 1 reputation was manipulated using store names, while in study 2 the reputation was manipulated using store characteristics. The findings of two studies suggest that consumer reactions to price-matching guarantees, such as store price perceptions, postpurchase search intentions, and willingness to claim a refund if a lower competitive price is found, differ across the two purchase environments.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
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.
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.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two types of shopping aids, that is, research-supporting and solution-oriented shopping aids, and examine their effectiveness, ...considering both consumer and situational factors.Design methodology approach - Expanded selection and additional detailed information are chosen to illustrate research-supporting shopping aids, and personalized product recommendations and product ratings are used as examples of solution-oriented shopping aids. This conceptual paper proposes that usage of shopping aids has an effect on the purchase likelihood and decision satisfaction and focuses on studying the moderating role of consumer product knowledge and time pressure. The thesis is that congruence between the type of a shopping aid and consumer characteristics, such as product knowledge, or situational characteristics, such as time pressure, should enhance the effectiveness of shopping aids.Findings - The research propositions in this paper delineate how the use of retail shopping aids should affect the consumer's purchase likelihood, decision satisfaction, decision confidence, and evaluation costs, under the moderating influence of product knowledge and time pressure. Overall, knowledgeable consumers and less time-pressed consumers should benefit from research-supporting shopping aids (i.e. expanded selection and additional product information), whereas novice consumers and time-pressed consumers should benefit from solution-oriented shopping aids (i.e. personalized product recommendation and product ratings).Originality value - Retail shopping aids are designed to offer sales assistance for consumers to handle the obstacles to purchase completion. However, past efforts to install retail shopping aids have seen mixed results. This conceptual paper advocates that consideration of consumer characteristics and situational factors is necessary to understand the effects of shopping aid usage. This paper thus contributes to the understanding of solutions to purchase decision deferral and the determinants of decision satisfaction, and has practical implications for retailers regarding providing retail shopping aids to facilitate purchase completion and shopping experiences.
