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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on consumer perceptions of transaction value when presented with deals that are equivalent on a unit-cost basis but worded differently. Through an experimental design setting, it examines the effect of three such frames: one, stated in terms of a straight price promotion ("50% off"), the second, as an extra-product or volume promotion ("buy one, get one free"), and a third as a "mixed" promotion ("buy two, get 50% off"). Four typical supermarket categories are considered which permit the investigation of the effect of two category-based moderating factors: stock-up characteristic and price level. Results show that the nature of framing appears to differentially affect consumer perceptions of value from "equivalent" deals. Also, perceptions of deal value from price versus extra-product promotions are moderated by the stockup characteristic of the category. However, consumers' internal reference prices remain unaffected across one-time price and extraproduct promotions. These findings provide some understanding of the role of deal framing on consumers' responses, and offer implications for industry practitioners interested in communicating the maximum value in their deals. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In an increasingly competitive retailing environment store owners employ a number of ingenious promotional strategies to attract and induce shoppers to buy their products. Any representative sampling of advertisements from the weekend newspapers would indicate the widespread use of such tactics as reducing the price that a buyer has to pay through offering coupons or direct price promotions (e.g., "20% off," Save $), offering more of the product at the same price (e.g., "buy one, get one free," "25% more free," "10 ounces more free," etc.), as well as various combinations of both price and extra-product promotions (e.g., "buy 2, get 20% off"). Although the obvious objectives of the retailers in these deals are to communicate superior deal value to consumers and accelerate their purchase decisions, an interesting aspect to this strategy is that sellers stand to gain not just by changing the dollar amounts of the deals, but by an appropriate "framing" of their offered deals such that they enhance consumers' perceived transaction values. For instance, a recent study has shown how reframing the aggregate price in terms of "pennies a day" appears to gain higher compliance from prospective buyers (Gourville,...