IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jconsa/v48y2014i1p195-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond Door-to-Door: The Implications of Invited In-Home Selling

Author

Listed:
  • PAUL HARRISON
  • MARTA MASSI
  • KATHRYN CHALMERS

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="joca12027-abs-0001"> Over the past 20 years, consumer groups and policymakers have expressed concerns about the high-pressure selling techniques used during in-home selling, often highlighting the distinction between typical door-to-door selling, and the type of selling that occurs when a salesperson is “invited” through a previous interaction to undertake a sales process in the consumer's home. This article explores these high-pressure selling techniques in the context of the invited in-home selling (IIHS) of educational software and the consequences in terms of consumer vulnerability and consumer protection policy. We conclude by drawing upon earlier discourse in this field to argue that policy-makers, consumer advocates and businesses consider a holistic, multi-dimensional contextualization of consumer vulnerability as a means to consider consumer protection in this, and other contexts .

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Harrison & Marta Massi & Kathryn Chalmers, 2014. "Beyond Door-to-Door: The Implications of Invited In-Home Selling," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 195-221, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:48:y:2014:i:1:p:195-221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/joca.12027
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bob M. Fennis & Loes Janssen & Kathleen D. Vohs, 2009. "Acts of Benevolence: A Limited-Resource Account of Compliance with Charitable Requests," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(6), pages 906-924, April.
    2. Olshavsky, Richard W & Granbois, Donald H, 1979. "Consumer Decision Making-Fact or Fiction?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 6(2), pages 93-100, Se.
    3. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    4. Scott, Peter, 2008. "Managing Door-to-Door Sales of Vacuum Cleaners in Interwar Britain," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 761-788, January.
    5. Frenzen, Jonathan K & Davis, Harry L, 1990. "Purchasing Behavior in Embedded Markets," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(1), pages 1-12, June.
    6. Edward J. Russo & Kurt A. Carlson & Margaret G. Meloy & Kevyn Yong, 2008. "The goal of consistency as a cause of information distortion," Post-Print hal-00481326, HAL.
    7. Jolson, Marvin A., 1972. "Direct selling: Consumer vs. salesman : Is conflict inevitable?," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 87-95, October.
    8. On Amir & Dan Ariely & Alan Cooke & David Dunning & Nicholas Epley & Uri Gneezy & Botond Koszegi & Donald Lichtenstein & Nina Mazar & Sendhil Mullainathan & Drazen Prelec & Eldar Shafir & Jose Silva, 2005. "Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 443-454, December.
    9. Loewenstein, George, 1987. "Anticipation and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 666-684, September.
    10. Wang, Yong Jian & Minor, Michael S. & Wei, Jie, 2011. "Aesthetics and the online shopping environment: Understanding consumer responses," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 46-58.
    11. Morrison, Michael & Gan, Sarah & Dubelaar, Chris & Oppewal, Harmen, 2011. "In-store music and aroma influences on shopper behavior and satisfaction," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(6), pages 558-564, June.
    12. Zeelenberg, M., 1999. "The use of crying over spilled milk : A note on the rationality and functionality of regret," Other publications TiSEM 66ac04be-d1ee-4a0e-9e97-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Verhallen, Theo M. M., 1982. "Scarcity and consumer choice behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 299-322, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julia Rötzmeier-Keuper, 2020. "Consumer Vulnerability: Overview And Synthesis Of The Current State Of Knowledge And Future Service-Related Research Directions," Working Papers Dissertations 65, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    2. Jeannie Paterson & Gerard Brody, 2015. "“Safety Net” Consumer Protection: Using Prohibitions on Unfair and Unconscionable Conduct to Respond to Predatory Business Models," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 331-355, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Woods & Mustafa Abdallah & Saurabh Bagchi & Shreyas Sundaram & Timothy Cason, 2022. "Network defense and behavioral biases: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 254-286, February.
    2. Kocher, Martin G. & Krawczyk, Michal & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "‘Let me dream on!’ Anticipatory emotions and preference for timing in lotteries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 29-40.
    3. Andreas C. Drichoutis & Varvara Kechagia, 2016. "The effect of olfactory sensory cues on economic decision making," Working Papers 2016-4, Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics.
    4. Manel Baucells & Silvia Bellezza, 2017. "Temporal Profiles of Instant Utility During Anticipation, Event, and Recall," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 729-748, March.
    5. Nikolaus Schweizer & Nora Szech, 2018. "Optimal Revelation of Life-Changing Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5250-5262, November.
    6. Patrick DeJarnette & David Dillenberger & Daniel Gottlieb & Pietro Ortoleva, 2020. "Time Lotteries and Stochastic Impatience," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 619-656, March.
    7. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.
    8. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l’Haridon, 2013. "Sign-dependence in intertemporal choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 225-253, December.
    9. Chen, Si, 2012. "Optimistic versus Pessimistic--Optimal Judgemental Bias with Reference Point," MPRA Paper 50693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Dorian Jullien & Alexandre Truc, 2024. "Towards a History of Behavioral and Experimental Economics in France," GREDEG Working Papers 2024-23, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    11. Anne Spencer, 2001. "The Implications of Linking Questions within the SG and TTO Methods," Working Papers 438, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    12. Aurélien Baillon & Owen O'Donnell & Stella Quimbo & Kim van Wilgenburg, 2022. "Do time preferences explain low health insurance take‐up?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(4), pages 951-983, December.
    13. Colin Camerer, 1998. "Bounded Rationality in Individual Decision Making," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 163-183, September.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:8:p:711-721 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Teck H. Ho & Noah Lim & Colin Camerer, 2005. "Modeling the Psychology of Consumer and Firm Behavior with Behavioral Economics," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000476, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán González, 2023. "On The Appeal Of Complexity," Working Papers 2312, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    17. van Winden, Frans & Krawczyk, Michal & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2011. "Investment, resolution of risk, and the role of affect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 918-939.
    18. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l'Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2013. "Is There One Unifying Concept of Utility?An Experimental Comparison of Utility Under Risk and Utility Over Time," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 2153-2169, September.
    19. Anne Spencer, 2001. "The Implications of Linking Questions within the SG and TTO Methods," Working Papers 438, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    20. Philip A. Horvath & Amit K. Sinha, 2017. "Asymmetric reaction is rational behavior," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 41(1), pages 160-179, January.
    21. Soo Hong Chew & Junjian Yi & Junsen Zhang & Songfa Zhong, 2016. "Education and anomalies in decision making: Experimental evidence from Chinese adult twins," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 163-200, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:48:y:2014:i:1:p:195-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-0078 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.