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The purpose of this study is to examine consumer behaviors toward a bundle of tickets and lodging using two different message framing: (1) scarcity framing for a high demand event, the All-Star Game, and (2) discount framing for a lower demand event, an MLB mid-week game.

Data were collected through two online surveys of 836 sport consumers in total on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were analyzed using a mix of analysis of variances (ANOVAs) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Consumers are likely to buy products separately in a scarce situation. When discounts are offered as benefits of choosing a bundle, consumers with high willingness to pay (WTP) have higher purchase intentions (PI) and perceived value toward cumulative discounts.

This is the one of few studies that investigate (1) price bundling of products from two disparate industries where consumer demands fluctuate, (2) the effects of scarcity in a bundle, and (3) all possible discount messaging in a bundle.

This paper aims to examine three important questions: What would be the effects of pricing at the lower end of a wide vs narrow latitude of price acceptance (LPA) on consumer choice of the bundle? How would the nature of a bundle frame (i.e. discount on bundle vs discount on components) and discount frame (i.e. discount as absolute off vs discount as percentage off) influence the preference given to a price level that is at the wide or narrow end of the LPA? Would the effect be significantly different if the bundle components were complementary vs if they were non-complementary?

The authors carried out two studies using between-subject experimental design. In Study 1, the authors used 2 (LPA: wide/narrow) × 2 (complementarity: yes/no) × 2 (bundle frame: together/separate) design, and in Study 2, the authors replaced bundle frame with discount frame (i.e. absolute off/percentage off).

The authors find that the LPA effect is likely to outweigh the complementarity effect; however, a combined effect of complementarity and bundle frame is stronger than the LPA effect. Also, for a wide (narrow) LPA product bundle, absolute off (percentage off) discount frame is more attractive.

Managers should use bundling strategy with complementary products having wider LPA. In case of wide LPA and complementary products, both together and separate frame could be the best bundling strategy while in case of narrow LPA and complementary products, together frame could be the best bundling strategy.

The main contribution relates to the role LPA plays in consumer evaluation of a bundle offer and its interaction with complementarity and discount frame. The authors apply the range hypothesis principles (i.e. price-attractiveness judgments are based on a comparison of market prices to the endpoints of a range of evoked prices) in the bundling context and extend the earlier work in the area of complementarity and discount frame.

Inaction inertia is the phenomenon in which people are less likely to accept an opportunity after having previously missed a relatively superior one. This research explores how framing quantity promotions as either a freebie (e.g. “buy 1, get 1 free”) or a price bundle (e.g. “buy 2, get 50% off”) influences inaction inertia. Relevant mediators are also identified.

Three experiments, two using imaginary scenarios and one using an incentive-compatible design, test the hypotheses.

Consumers who miss a freebie quantity promotion express higher inaction inertia than consumers who miss a price bundle promotion. The cause of this difference is higher perceived regret and greater devaluation that result from missing a superior freebie (vs price bundle) promotion.

Future research should examine how factors influencing perceived regret and devaluation moderate the quantity promotional frame effect on inaction inertia.

The findings provide insights into which quantity promotional frames practitioners should use to reduce inaction inertia.

This study's comprehensive theoretical framework predicts quantity promotional frame effects on inaction inertia and identifies relevant internal mechanisms. The findings are evidence that inaction inertia is caused by both perceived regret and devaluation in certain contexts. Furthermore, this study identifies the conditions in which a price bundle promotional frame is more beneficial than a freebie promotional frame.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of price bundling and message framing on attitudes, intentions, and beliefs about attributes of teeth whitening products. Although each of these variables, message framing and price bundling, has been explored individually, few attempts have been made to investigate them jointly. This study is based on a full factorial design that allows for testing of interaction effects. Second, the market for whitening products is maturing, resulting in a target market that is gaining knowledge about these products. Thus, we use knowledge as a covariate in the above investigation to determine if the communication strategy should be changed as the product moves from introduction to maturity.

The study is based on a 2 × 2 factorial design with price bundling (bundle price – individual price) and framing (positive – negative). The setting for the study is a hypothetical brand name of teeth whitening products.

The results reveal a mixed picture with respect to effectiveness of pricing and framing on attitudes and intentions. The effect of price bundling is not significant on attitudes; it is significant on intentions. Framing has a greater impact on intentions than on attitudes. Nevertheless, the interaction effects are significant on both attitudes as well as intentions. Finally, the impact of knowledge as a covariate is significant.

Caution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.

The findings help marketers in formulating effective marketing strategy using both price bundling and message framing strategies.

Although price bundling and message framing have been explored in marketing studies, the research is lacking on the combined effects of these two important variables. The findings show a significant interaction effect of pricing and framing on changing attitudes and intentions. Prior research recommends using negative framing. The present research shows that for bundle products, a positive framing approach is desirable.

Although the evidence exists for the effect of promotional frame on repurchase intention, it is unclear whether the timing of repurchase can moderate the effect. In this paper, three experiments were conducted to answer this question.

In Experiment 1, a 2 (framing: bundle vs. gift) × 2 (repurchase target: focal vs. supplementary) × 2 (timing: short vs. long) between-subjects design was used. In Experiment 2, an identical design was used except that repurchase target being the within-subjects factor. In Experiment 3, the design was based on that of Experiment 2 and brand was added a between-subjects factor.

Experiment 1 showed that, with a short interval, repurchase intention under gift frame was higher than that under bundle frame. With a long interval, there was no significant difference between the gift and bundle frames. Experiment 2, however, indicated no effects for expensive products. Experiment 3 showed that brand (private versus national brand) moderate the interaction between framing, repurchase target and timing. Particularly, for private brand, no significant comparisons were found; for national brand, repurchase intention for the focal product was significantly higher than for the supplementary product, but only under the conditions of long interval and gift frame (rather than bundle frame).

Taken together, findings from the current study contributes to the literature by showing for the first time that repurchase timing can moderate the promotional frame effect (i.e. higher repurchase intention under gift framing relative to bundle framing occurs in the short interval but not long interval) and that brand type can moderate the joint effects of framing, timing and repurchase target (i.e. national brand, rather than private brand, paired with long interval and gift frame results in higher repurchase intention for the focal product). The findings provide marketers with important knowledge in terms of how to adjust a promotional frame depending on when consumers repurchase a product and whether the product has a private or national brand.

The purpose of this paper is to study how consumers process price frames of product bundles (product plus surcharge) and discount offers to weigh contentious positions between the weighted-additive and the reference-dependent models. Further, some research suggests bundling, while others suggest partitioning to be a more effective pricing strategy. This research evaluated the relative influences of different price frames to examine which model is supported and what are the boundary conditions for price framing.

Two online studies were conducted on Indian adults who had prior experiences of online purchases. They were asked to judge attractiveness of bundles (product along with shipping surcharge). Discounts were shown on the product, the surcharge or on the overall bundle either as partitioned prices or as a bundle.

Across two studies on low- and high-priced products, discounts on shipping surcharge increased attractiveness of the bundle compared to a similar discount on the product or on the overall bundle, supporting the reference-dependent model. Further, for a low-priced product, bundling increased attractiveness, while for a high-priced product, partitioning was more attractive.

More research is needed to examine whether these results translate to other kinds of products, surcharges or discount promotions and in different populations.

This research makes important contributions to theoretical and practical aspects of bundling and partitioned pricing research. It also adds much needed data about evaluation of product bundles with shipping surcharges among Indian customers.

Based on the concept of information salience, the research investigates the factors that might drive potential differences in consumers' preferences between offers framed as free with purchase or as a bundle.

Four experiments examined how participants' preferences for bundled offers or free-with-purchase offers varied as a function of the perceived benefits to be obtained from the supplementary products (studies 1a and 1b) and identified participants' sensitivity to the price of the supplementary component as a mediator of the framing effect of a promotional offer (study 2) and the provision of information facilitating the drawing of comparisons as the boundary condition constraining the effectiveness of a free-with-purchase offer (study 3).

Results show that a bundled offer is preferable to a free-with-purchase offer when the supplementary product provides a high-level rather than a low-level benefit and identify price sensitivity as an underlying mechanism behind the observed effect. Furthermore, consumers' sensitivity to the value of the focal product in the deal brought to their attention by comparative information makes a fair charge for a relatively unattractive component the preferable offer.

While much of the existing published research on bundled offers focuses on the assigning of discounts to individual products in the bundle, this study adds to the body of knowledge by showing that variation in perceived benefits is the key driver of different responses to a free-with-purchase offer versus a bundled offer.

Despite significant business spending in areas such as personalization tools and add-on options representing levels of product attributes, most marketers do not know the amount of value that is directly attributable to their e-customization strategies. This study aims to offer an in-depth investigation of consumers' value perceptions of e-customization and their relationship with perceived sufficiency of information and cognitive cost. The context effects on value perception in e-customization are studied together with antecedent constructs.

The research consists of a 2×2 between-subjects factorial design. The full model is tested using multiple-group structural equation modeling analysis to verify the significance of the inter-relationships between constructs, as well as the main and the interaction effects of two experimental factors (product information framing and product type).

The experimental results showed that perceived e-customization value does not simply stem from the ability to “narrow-cast” content more specifically related to a shopper's interests (i.e. anticipated fulfillment value). Rather, this value also stems from the dynamic flexibility of the information system and its ability to entertain and educate during the information dissemination process (i.e. process value and knowledge value). Furthermore, when the customization framing features are better matched with product type characteristics, e-customization seemed to increase value in ways that are difficult to achieve in conventional shopping environments.

By testing the proposed structural model simultaneously with two experimental factors of product type and information framing, this work is the first to address the question of context effects on value creation in an area of increasing substantive importance.

Considering the rapid adoption of social media among consumers and organizations, this study intends to examine the impact of online bundle promotions and contextual interactions on impulse buying as consumers encounter them synchronously. Hence, a research model is proposed with the integration of perceived transaction value, perceived acquisition values, top reviews information, impulse buying tendency and emotional intelligence following the stimulus-organism-response framework, promotional framing effect, and theory of selective attention.

Data were collected from the active social media members of organization pages and selling groups by utilizing the self-administered questionnaire. This study employed the partial least squares structural equation modeling to evaluate the data of 358 individuals.

Results reveal the positive impact of targeted constructs on the urge to buy impulsively with complementary partial mediation of impulse buying tendency. Besides, emotional intelligence dissuades users' impulse buying tendencies, but unexpectedly, its moderating effect is insignificant. Further, importance-performance map analysis highlights the highest importance of impulse buying tendency and better performance of perceived transaction value for the urge to buy impulsively.

This research is one of the early studies to explore the influence of social media advertising and contextual social factors (e.g. bundle offers and top reviews information) on impulse buying with the moderation of emotional intelligence and mediation of impulse buying tendency. This research is imperative for scholars and managers with pertinent suggestions to arouse impulse buying.

This research examines the effects of bundling format (partially‐bundled attributes vs. unbundled attributes) and framing of promotional discounts (rebate, discount and free‐options) on perceived quality, price acceptability, perceived value and subsequent purchase intentions. The results indicate that price reductions that are framed as providing “free” product options are perceived more favorably than conventional discounts which, in turn, are more favorable than rebates, holding the total amount of a price reduction constant. The results also suggest that unbundling of deals (or segregation of gains) enhances these perceptions.