Price Consciousness and Purchase Intentions for New Food Products: The Moderating Effect of Product Category Knowledge when Price Is Unknown

This study examines the degree to which consumers' price consciousness affects their purchase intentions for a newly introduced product when the price of the product is unknown. Based on data from 186 consumers exposed to a new product offering, the results show that price consciousness indeed has a negative effect on purchase intentions, but only for consumers with a high level of product category knowledge. Although perceived risk and perceived value are significantly related to purchase intentions in general, price consciousness seems to affect only those consumers who make inferences about price based on their knowledge of the product category. Both theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are offered.     

The effect of product touch information and sale proneness on consumers' responses to price discounts

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.     

Currency Substitution and Price Endings: Right Digit Effect

ABSTRACT

The strategic manipulation of prices. rightmost digits has been a tactic used by retailers in the western world for decades. By studying the internationalization of pricing tactics in a global economy, our research adds a much needed contribution to the literature of price endings and pricing tactics in global markets. We find that at lower price levels, consumers exposed to a 99 ending price in a currency substitution market are more likely to purchase the product compared to consumers in the US market. At higher price levels, on the other hand, consumers in either market situation exhibit no change in purchase intentions. Thus, the 99 ending tactic has no effect on consumers when the product is expensive. The use of the right digit effect by managers in a currency substitution/ dollarized economy as a way of persuading consumers to buy is still likely to be more successful compared to the USA market. As such, firms in a dollarized economy should structure their pricing strategies while taking into consideration the type of product they are offering and the consumer market they are dealing with.     

Extrinsic Cues and Consumer Judgments of Food Product Introductions: The Case of Pangasius in Norway

In this article, the authors explore how the extrinsic cues corporate social responsibility, endorsement, and country of origin affect consumer evaluations of product quality, value, and expected product popularity for frozen Pangasius filets, a farmed fish product just recently introduced into the Norwegian market. The effects of these three variables are tested on purchase intentions. By means of a 2?×?2?×?2 factorial experiment in combination with survey data, the authors find that the three extrinsic cues under study had different effects on the evaluative variables. Furthermore, these variables all had positive and significant effects on purchase intentions. Hence, the general conclusion is that importers of new food products like Pangasius can benefit from focusing on extrinsic cues when the intrinsic cues are hard to evaluate or are unknown. Through the indirect effect on purchase intentions, extrinsic cues play an important role when consumers judge unfamiliar and new products.     

Power and the appeal of the deal: how consumers value the control provided by Pay What You Want (PWYW) pricing

The current research offers a number of novel findings regarding how individuals respond to Pay What You Want (PWYW) pricing, a strategy that affords consumers complete control over prices. Two experiments integrate research on consumer power into the PWYW literature to show that PWYW’s influence arises primarily with respect to low-power consumers who use PWYW’s pricing control to regulate their power states. Specifically, PWYW is shown to promote stronger intentions to purchase and to recommend a product than fixed pricing, particularly for low- versus high-power consumers. Supporting the notion that PWYW offers the powerless a platform for power elevation, experiment 2 reveals that the more favorable responses of low-power consumers to PWYW are accompanied by increased feelings of self-reliance. Further suggesting that low-power consumers value the pricing control afforded by PWYW for power regulation, the effects are not attributed to differences in the amounts that low- and high-power consumers are willing to pay under PWYW. In addition to providing a deeper understanding of PWYW pricing, the present work extends the power literature by demonstrating that power restoration can transpire not only from the possession of certain products but also through the pricing mechanism by which such products are obtained.     

Upgrade pricing, market growth, and social welfare

This paper studies the monopolist's dynamic pricing strategy when introducing successive generations of a durable product. We show that when consumers are semi-anonymous or exactly identified and the innovation is minor, the firm always offers an upgrade discount to former customers. However, the discount depends only on the quality of the old product. In contrast, for moderate and major innovations, the discount depends on the qualities and costs of both the old and the new products. The market growth rate affects the firm's pricing strategy only if consumers are anonymous; furthermore, the effect on prices depends on the discount rate and whether the market growth rate is high or low. For minor innovations, social welfare is maximized if consumers are anonymous. An interesting and paradoxical result is that, when innovations are moderate or major and consumers are semi-anonymous or exactly identified, price discrimination can actually lead to higher social welfare.     

Are Low Price and Price Matching Guarantees Equivalent? The Effects of Different Price Guarantees on Consumers’ Evaluations

Some retailers offer price match guarantees, whereas others offer guarantees making the same promise but labeling these low-price guarantees. Do consumers respond differently to these different price guarantee labels? To address this research question, this paper leverages insights from pricing, signaling, and regulatory focus theories to demonstrate – across multiple studies – that consumers perceive price match versus low price guarantees differently. In turn, contingent on consumers’ regulatory focus, this difference in perceptions feeds forward and influences consumers’ purchase intentions and post purchase (e.g., repurchase) intentions. This paper contributes to theory, not only by showing differences across price match versus low price guarantees, but also by being the first to jointly examine purchase and post purchase intentions relating to price guarantees. This paper also speaks to practice, noting contingencies that determine whether the price match or the low-price guarantee label should be used.     

Culture, product type, and price influences on consumer purchase intention to buy personalized products online

With personalization, consumers can choose from various product attributes and a customized product is assembled based on their preferences. Marketers often offer personalization on websites. This paper investigates consumer purchase intentions toward personalized products in an online selling situation.The research builds and tests three hypotheses: (1) intention to purchase personalized products will be affected by individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity dimensions of a national culture; (2) consumers will be more likely to buy personalized search products than experience products; and (3) intention to buy a personalized product will not be influenced by price premiums up to some level. Results indicate that individualism is the only culture dimension to have a significant effect on purchase intention. Product type and individualism by price interaction also have a significant effect, whereas price does not. Major findings and implications are discussed.     

Sales promotions for preorder products: The role of time‐of‐release

Preorder offers are increasingly common for many types of products and services. Sales promotions, such as price discounts and free gifts, are frequently used to raise offer attractiveness and elicit a stronger sales response. Through a series of experiments, we show that a preorder promotion's effectiveness depends on whether it matches the construal level associated with timing of the featured product's release. When a match occurs, it increases consumers’ positive affect leading to higher purchase intention directly or by raising the perceived certainty of new product quality. In addition, we find interesting differences related to promotion type. Specifically, we show that a larger discount promotes low‐level construals, which leads to stronger purchase intentions only when the product is scheduled for near‐future release. Since a gift may elicit either high‐ or low‐level construals, a premium offer of higher perceived value leads to stronger purchase intentions regardless of release timing.     

Voluntary pricing mechanisms for green product purchase: altruistic versus self-enhancing consideration

Voluntary pricing mechanisms, such as Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW), could be a better pricing strategy to substitute for cash discount promotions. They can effectively promote the sales of conventional goods and services, while being influenced by socio-psychological variables. However, there is no clarity on the relative assessment of the impact of pricing frames, such as PWYW and Mark-Off-Your-Own-Price (MOYOP), on the consumers’ purchase of green products, where the purchase consideration might vary as the environment protection (altruistic) consideration versus the self-interest (self-enhancing) consideration. Further, there remains ambiguity on when and why such pricing mechanisms will work. This study, through an experiment, examines the buyers’ varied responses for the PWYW price frame versus the MOYOP price frame versus the fixed price frame under the environment protection (altruistic) consideration versus the self-interest (self-enhancing) consideration. It shows that although buyers do not show any difference in the mean voluntary payment between PWYW versus MOYOP frames as such; they prefer PWYW price frame under the environment protection (altruistic) consideration and MOYOP price frame under the self-interest (self-enhancing) consideration. The results show that the perception of price fairness mediates the relationship between pricing mechanism and willingness to buy (WTB). Furthermore, this study finds that price consciousness impacts the indirect effect of pricing mechanisms on WTB via perceived price fairness. The present study is the first to examine and analyze different considerations when the buyers’ preference varied for the PWYW versus MOYOP pricing frames. This study has suggested the underlying role of the perception of price fairness and price consciousness in the participative pricing mechanism on purchase.     

Metaphor as Visual Thinking in Advertising and Its Effects: Focus on Brand Familiarity and Product Involvement

One of advertisers' favorite communication techniques is the visual metaphor. In fact, metaphor usage perennially increases in ad images. This study, which looks at consumers with varying levels of brand familiarity and product involvement, investigates how their attitudes and purchase intentions of are influenced by the persuasive effects of visual metaphors in various advertising conditions. The findings reveal that consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions are enhanced more by visual metaphor-based ads than nonmetaphor-based ads when the advertised product is in a low-involvement product category. Nonmetaphorical ads are found to have a more positive influence with high-involvement products than do metaphorical ads. The results show a significant three-way interaction effect. When the advertised product is in a low-involvement product category, visual metaphors lead to favorable brand evaluations and higher purchase intentions in the ads for a low-familiarity brand. However, nonmetaphors are more persuasive than visual metaphors only for the low familiarity brand in a high-involvement product category. Theoretical and practical implications are addressed in the discussion.     

Indian Consumers' Value-Based New Food Product Adoption

In response to increased attention toward Indian markets in general and food markets specifically, multinational companies need to accurately identify the attitudinal and product attribute factors that impact new food product adoption among Indian consumers. Applying integrated decision utility theories, we examined the influence of product familiarity on value-based product purchase decisions and intentions. The results indicate that expected value, perceived value, and purchase intentions are influenced by familiarity; only expected value influences purchase intentions. Marketing implications are also discussed.     

The influence of redundant comparison prices and other price presentation formats on consumers’ evaluations and purchase intentions

Two studies explore the conditions under which redundant reference price information (ARP) is likely to influence consumers’ perceptions of an advertised sale price. Study 1 suggests that an ARP enhances offer-value, but only for consumers who are not involved with the product. Study 2 incorporates a wider array of price presentation tactics (SP Only, SP+ARP, SP+%Saving and SP+ARP+%Saving) and investigates a range of responses (transaction value, acquisition value and subsequent purchase intentions). Again, results suggest that ARP only influences perceived transaction value, and saving information only impacts purchase intentions. Most importantly, these effects are seen only when involvement is low.     

Impacts of product type and representation type on the perception of justice and price fairness

Consumers make purchasing decisions every day. This paper investigates perceptions of justice and price unfairness, where the product (hedonic vs. utilitarian) is presented either in a more abstract (verbal) or a more concrete (photo) way in a context of discriminatory pricing—a widely-employed marketing practice. Two experimental studies were completed. Results show an interaction between product and representation types. When consumers pay more than others to purchase utilitarian products that are concretely represented, participants perceive more unfairness when compared to hedonic products. However, when consumers pay more than others to purchase utilitarian products abstractly represented, the perception of unfairness decreased compared to hedonic products. For consumers and practitioners, this study offers important contributions—it presents situations in which a discriminatory price can result in a different perception of injustice or price unfairness to informed consumers. Accordingly, implications of these findings for the literature, consumers, and managers are discussed.     

Purchase Behavior and Psychophysiological Responses to Different Price Levels

The aim of the study was to examine emotional processes when product prices for different brands were changed. In a within‐subjects design, the participants were presented purchase decision trials with 14 different products (seven private label and seven national brand products) whose price levels were changed while their facial electromyography (EMG) and electrodermal activity were recorded. The results suggest that low prices and national brand products induce higher positive emotions indexed with zygomatic EMG compared to high prices and private label products. Also, positive emotions are related to greater purchase intent. Naturally, a low price has also a direct positive influence on purchase intent. However, the involvement of emotions and the influence that price and brand have on elicitation of emotions may be one explanation for consumers’ varying purchase behavior. The results highlight the importance of emotional factors in pricing research and support the usefulness of psychophysiological measures in the consumer research.     

Name-your-own-price as participative pricing strategy: a review of the literature from 2001–2017

ABSTRACT

Name-your-own-price (NYOP), a pricing strategy often referred to as a reverse auction, is a participative pricing mechanism in which consumers have a relatively high control over the price they pay for a product or service. In an NYOP mechanism, buyers generate the final price of a product or service when they bid above an unrevealed threshold price set by the seller. Although NYOP as a pricing strategy was previously investigated, the literature remains scarce and fragmented. This paper attempts to assemble the relevant findings of this pricing strategy, by systematically reviewing all publications from 2001 to 2017. We explored the impacts of this mechanism for companies and consumers, such as increased profit for companies and higher savings for consumers, reduced competition for companies and increased satisfaction for consumers. We also highlighed the best practices of NYOP, such as the bidding practices, threshold price, and willingness to pay.     

Consumer reaction to product recalls: factors influencing product judgement and behavioural intentions

In order to evaluate the factors influencing consumers’ responses to product recalls, two surveys were conducted among Brazilian automobile owners and two regression models tested. Results indicated that (i) product judgement was significantly affected by corporate social responsibility (CSR), blame attributed to the company and whether or not consumers had a car made by the brand considered; and (ii) behavioural intentions were significantly affected by CSR, consumers’ involvement with the message, perceived danger, product judgement and whether or not consumers had a car made by the brand considered. Findings revealed, however, that CSR is a better predictor of the product judgement than of the behavioural intentions, in accordance with recent studies indicating that CSR affects consumer judgements and behaviour differently. Finally, these two models are discussed and compared with previous research.     

Scarcity tactics in marketing: A meta-analysis of product scarcity effects on consumer purchase intentions

Scarcity tactics are an essential tool for marketers. Cues that signal the current or potential unavailability of a product generally enhance its value and desirability and in turn increase purchase intentions. While there have been earlier reviews, the fragmented nature of the research to date means there is no cohesion across findings. Given that retailers employ a variety of scarcity cues in a diversity of settings, it is important to identify the magnitude of the effect of scarcity cues and how the effect on consumers’ purchase intentions changes across conditions. This research presents a meta-analysis of 416 effect sizes from 131 studies. Results show that demand-based scarcity is most effective for utilitarian products, supply-based scarcity for experiences, and time-based scarcity for high involvement products. The results show that managers need to consider the above factors to maximize the success of scarcity tactics in their marketing campaigns.     

在线促销限制对消费者购买决策的影响研究——基于精细加工可能性视角

文章基于精细加工可能性理论探究了在线购物情景中不同促销限制类型（时间限制和数量限制）对消费者购买决策行为的影响。通过2（产品涉入度：高vs低）×2（限制类型：限时vs限量）的组间因子实验设计进行了实证研究,结果发现：在线促销情境下,促销限制对消费者购买决策的影响受到消费者产品涉入度的调节。当产品涉入度高时,消费者偏好时间限制促销,购买意向更高,感知控制感起了中介作用。当产品涉入度低时,偏好数量限制促销,购买意向更高,感知稀缺性起了中介作用。文章丰富了促销理论和消费者购买决策理论,同时为商家进行有效的在线促销提供了直接指导。