Per piece or per kilogram? Default-unit effects in retailing

Fecher, André, Thomas Robbert and Stefan Roth

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2020, vol. 53, issue C

Abstract: Retailers offer a variety of products either per unit or per weight. Depending on the product category, consumers may find either one of these pricing strategies typical and the default. Especially online retailers are increasingly using unit-based prices, which is the non-default for many produce categories. So far, consequences resulting from non-default pricing strategies are unclear. This study addresses the questions of whether and how pricing strategies affect consumer behavior. In a series of four experiments, we show that default pricing strategies exist in the marketplace and that consumers prefer products that retailers offer using default pricing strategies. We also demonstrate that this behavior is due to uncertainty issues when assessing prices in non-default pricing strategies. Furthermore, we elaborate on the influence of weight expectations and explicitly stated weight information on this default-unit effect. The findings suggest that retailers can mitigate negative effects resulting from non-default pricing strategies by providing weight information.

Keywords: Default units; Price measure; Pricing strategy; Weight information; Consumer product choice; Grocery shopping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:53:y:2020:i:c:s0969698919304503

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101956

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