Consumer Reactance to Promotional Favors

Marco Bertini and Aylin Aydinli

Journal of Retailing, 2020, vol. 96, issue 4, 578-589

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.

Keywords: Promotional favors; Conditional discounts; Psychological reactance; Price promotion; Pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jouret:v:96:y:2020:i:4:p:578-589

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2020.03.002

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