On the Edge of Buying: A Targeting Approach for Indecisive Buyers Based on Willingness-to-Pay Ranges

Florian Dost, Robert Wilken, Maik Eisenbeiss and Bernd Skiera

Journal of Retailing, 2014, vol. 90, issue 3, 393-407

Abstract: Targeting the “right” consumers is a core part of marketing. Whereas existing techniques to identify these consumers use demographic or psychographic variables or behaviors such as response probabilities, a proposed new targeting approach builds on consumers’ incremental responses to identify them by their willingness-to-pay (WTP) ranges. These WTP ranges reveal a consumer as a definite buyer, a definite non-buyer, or an indecisive buyer. The proposed theoretical framework indicates that indecisive buyers offer the highest incremental responses to targeted marketing mix activities and thus should be the most preferred targeting group. A sequence of three laboratory experimental studies validates the proposed approach for targeted price discounts and non-price tactics. In addition, a large-scale field experiment involving a consumer engagement campaign that includes observed purchase behavior demonstrates the high external validity and applicability of this approach.

Keywords: Targeting; Willingness-to-pay range; Indecisive buyer; Segmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jouret:v:90:y:2014:i:3:p:393-407

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2014.03.007

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