How Much Will I Spend? Factors Affecting Consumers’ Estimates of Future Expense

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141049/1/jcpy141.pd

Price-denomination effect: Choosing to pay with denominations that are the same as the product prices

Building on past research on judgment anchoring, we investigate the effect of price information on consumers’ choice of denomination when making a purchase. Across seven experiments, including two in the field (N = 4,020), we find that people tend to purchase with denominations that are the same as the product prices. They use larger denominations for higher priced products that are priced at the value of the denomination held, and smaller denominations for lower priced products that are priced at the value of the smaller denomination held. The effect is not explained by storage or purchase convenience. We propose the “price-denomination effect” is driven by consumers anchoring on product price and then choosing the denomination that matches the anchor. The effect replicates across participants from different continents (United States, Europe, and Africa) and samples (online panelists, and actual consumers), as well as prices in different currencies (United States $, €, and Nigerian Naira). We further demonstrate that people’s preference for denominations also affects the choice of the form of payment used: cash versus card. Consumers are more likely to use cash (vs. card) when product price is exactly the same as a denomination held. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications

Customer experience management in retailing: Understanding the buying process

Abstract Retailers recognize that greater understanding of customers can enhance customer satisfaction and retail performance. This article seeks to enrich this understanding by providing an overview of existing consumer behavior literature and suggesting that specific elements of consumer behavior-goals, schema, information processing, memory, involvement, attitudes, affective processing, atmospherics, and consumer attributions and choices-play important roles during various stages of the consumer decision process. The authors suggest ways in which retailers can leverage this understanding of consumer behavior. Each of these conceptual areas also offers avenues for further research. © 2008 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Consumer behavior; Postpurchase; Goals; Information search; Retail environment; Attribution theory; Attitudes; Affect and mood; Involvement; Attitudes; Decision process The importance of understanding consumer behavior has never been more important to retailers. Whereas consumer research once was a task left to manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, retailers have embraced this responsibility, spending millions of dollars to research, understand, and influence consumer behavior. As we outline, academic research confirms the importance of such practices and we summarize the results of those efforts. Further, this paper develops an ongoing consumer research agenda that provides the authors' views as to the most important consumer issues worthy of retailers' attention. As theoretical work in consumer behavior becomes more refined, retailing must keep pace and remain vigilant in the pur- * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 617 373 4812

Non-Conscious Influences on Consumer Choice

While consumer choice research has dedicated considerable research attention to aspects of choice that are deliberative and conscious, only limited attention has been paid to aspects of choice that occur outside of conscious awareness. We review relevant research that suggests that consumer choice is a mix of conscious and nonconscious influences, and argue that the degree to which nonconscious influences affect choice is much greater than many choice researchers believe. Across a series of research domains, these influences are found to include stimulus that are not consciously perceived by the consumer, nonconscious downstream effects of a consciously perceived stimuli or thought process, and decision processes that occur entirely outside of awareness

Coupon value : a signal for price?

In this paper we argue that consumers use the value of a coupon as a source of information to estimate the regular price level. Study 1 demonstrates that the higher the percentage discount on a coupon (20% vs. 10%), the higher the estimated regular price. Study 2 demonstrates the same effect for cents off coupons using a cross-section of 152 coupons with values ranging from 15c̸ to $2. Brands offering higher value coupons are estimated to be higher priced. Both studies also show that the mere presence of a price promotion leads to higher price expectations. We then demonstrate that the use of coupon value as a source of information in making judgments of regular price is contingent on whether consumers have alternate sources of information available to them while making price judgments. Studies 3-5 examine how the presence of alternate brand or context-related price cues moderates this effects. Study 3 demonstrates that when consumers know past prices, the higher the coupon value, the lower the price expectation; but this is not so when consumers are not aware of past prices. Study 4 shows the same pattern of results using different operationalizations of alternate price information: prices of non-promoted lines of the same brand, and brand name. Finally, Study 5 demonstrates that the use of coupon value as a signal for price is inversely related to the availability and diagnosticity of competitive prices for making a price decision. The results are discussed in terms of the informational effects of price promotions. Managerial implications for the communication of coupon related promotions for new product introductions are discussed

Heads you win, tails I lose : the case of positioning along counterstereotypic dimensions

In this paper, we study the effect of providing information along one dimension that is counterstereotypic with information provided along another dimension on the persuasiveness of claims made along both dimensions. Based on the literature on stereotyping and inferencing, we theorize and demonstrate that when a product is positioned along two dimensions perceived to be counterstereotypic to each other -- health and taste -- the inclusion of infomation along a counterstereotypic secondary dimension diminishes the unfavorable inference regarding the secondary attribute as compared to when such information is missing, but the counterstereotypic secondary claim is not as persuasive as it would have been had it been presented without the primary claim. Further, the inclusion of a counterstereotypic sencondary claim reduces the persuasiveness of the primary claim. Results from a laboratory experiment are discussed in terms of how consumers maintain and modify their existing product stereotypes in the face of counterstereotypic product information. Implications for advertising a product along counterstereotypic dimensions are discussed

Spatial positioning: The value of centerstage

EXTENDED ABSTRACT -Does placing a product in a central, peripheral, or extreme-end position systematically affect consumers' attitudes toward the brand? Surprisingly, this issue has not been investigated by consumer psychologists despite the importance of shelf placement in a consumers' brand choice decision, a manufacturer's distribution decision, and a retailer's shelf space pricing decision. Other than isolated studies in psychology with inconsistent position effects (e.g., Taylor and Fiske 1975, Study 1 versus Study 2), the effect of visual placement on attitudes and preferences does not appear to have been systematically researched by psychologists. While psychological Apositioning@ is a well-known concept to marketers, oddly, the literal, spatial analogy on which it is based, is under-researched (except for Hotelling type models of store location with a distance cost to consumers, see Eppli and Benjamin 1994 for a review). This paper introduces the important and novel concept of Aspatial positioning,@ in a literal sense, with psychological overtones to marketing