Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation

Paolo Crosetto and Alexia Gaudeul

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Abstract Firms can exploit consumers' mistakes when facing complex purchasing decision problems but Gaudeul and Sugden (2012) argue that if at least some consumers disregard offers that are difficult to compare with others then firms will be forced into adopting common ways to present their offers and thus make choice easier. We design an original experiment to check whether consumers’ indeed favor those offers that are easy to compare with others in a menu. A sufficient number of subjects do so with sufficient intensity for offers presented in common terms to generate higher revenues than offers that are expressed in an idiosyncratic way.

Keywords: Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Limitations, Standards, Consumer Choice; Experimental Economics; Heuristics; Pricing Formats; Spurious Complexity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D18 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Testing the strength and robustness of the attraction effect in consumer decision making (2014)
Working Paper: Testing the strength and robustness of the attraction effect in consumer decision making (2014)
Working Paper: Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation (2012)
Working Paper: Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:41462

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