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Consumer Reactance to Promotional Favors

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  • Bertini, Marco
  • Aydinli, Aylin

Abstract

Promotional favors are an increasingly popular but seldom researched form of price promotion where the receipt of the saving by consumers depends on an action on their part that is nonmonetary in nature, such as completing a questionnaire, posting a review, or making a referral. This paper shows that the tactic can backfire, in the sense that consumers spend less than they would in response to a standard (unconditional) discount. We document this effect across five experiments. Experiment 1 is a field test. Experiments 2–5 replicate the result in more controlled settings, trace it to a process of psychological reactance, and address plausible alternative explanations. Finally, we review the contributions of our work and propose avenues for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertini, Marco & Aydinli, Aylin, 2020. "Consumer Reactance to Promotional Favors," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 96(4), pages 578-589.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jouret:v:96:y:2020:i:4:p:578-589
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2020.03.002
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    2. Bhatt, Siddharth & Pai, Dinesh R. & DelVecchio, Devon, 2023. "The dark side of multiunit discounts: Multiunit discounts reduce rest of basket revenue," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Tang, Jiansheng & Zhou, Jiamin & Zheng, Chundong & Jiao, Sijing, 2022. "More expectations, more disappointments: Ego depletion in uncertain promotion," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
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    5. Nigam, Achint & Dewani, Prem & Behl, Abhishek & Pereira, Vijay, 2022. "Consumer’s response to conditional promotions in retailing: An empirical inquiry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 751-763.
    6. Cabano, Frank G. & Attari, Amin, 2023. "Don’t tell me how much to tip: The influence of gratuity guidelines on consumers’ favorability of the brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    7. Karl Akbari & Udo Wagner, 2021. "Playing When Paying and What Happens Next: Customer Satisfaction and Word-of-Mouth Intention in Gambled Price Promotions," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 243-271, June.

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