The impact of price and extra product promotions on store preference

Focuses on consumer evaluations of store preference when presented with promotional deals that are equivalent on a unit‐cost basis and/or are equivalent on a total cost basis but are worded differently. An experimental design setting is used to examine the effect of three deal frames: one, stated in terms of a straight price promotion (“50 percent 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 percent off”). Four typical supermarket product categories are considered in a shopping scenario to investigate the effect of two category‐based moderating factors: product stock‐up characteristic and price level. Results show that the nature of framing significantly affects consumer deal preference and store preference even though the deals are equivalent on a unit cost basis and two of the deals are also equivalent on a total cost basis.