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The paper proposes investigating the timing of consumer requests for price‐matching refunds, the relationship between the refund timing and consumer repeat store purchase and the reasons for buying from the price‐matching store when a lower competitive price is found before purchase.

In Study 1, qualitative research (consumer interviews) was conducted; Study 2 uses a shopping simulation in which the timing of consumer refund‐seeking behavior is observed, and Study 3 involves a consumer survey in which information on consumer refund‐seeking behavior at real stores is gathered.

The paper finds that consumers request price‐matching refunds more frequently at the time of purchase than after the purchase. Seeking (and receiving) the price‐matching refund is associated with higher repeat store purchase behavior than not having had a refund‐seeking experience. Key reasons for buying from the price‐matching retailer when a lower competitive price is found before purchase include convenience, tangible extras, and store reputation/service quality.

A student convenience sample was used. In Study 2, fictitious stores were used. In Study 3, the timing of refund seeking may have been different on other (not reported) occasions. Ability to seek the refund was not accounted for.

The majority of the retailer's price‐matching cost will come from issuing at‐the‐time‐of‐purchase refunds, when consumers possess more bargaining power. A positive refund‐seeking experience may create a more loyal customer. In addition to being a low‐price signal, price‐matching policies can serve as signs of retailers' customer orientation.

This research fills the gap in understanding the consumer price‐match refund‐seeking behavior and offers practical implications for retailers employing price‐matching guarantees.

In this paper, the authors explore the consequences of showrooming and price matching strategy to combat showrooming under the consideration that brick-and-mortar (BM) stores and online retailers hold different costs.

The authors use a duopoly model to analyze the impact of showrooming behavior on competition between a BM store and an online retailer with different types of customers and different costs. Then, they consider the price matching strategy that a BM store could employ to combat showrooming and explore the effect of such a strategy.

Showrooming behavior is detrimental to the profit of the BM store, and the online retailer suffers a loss of their profit unless the relative cost of the BM store is high and only part of the customers exhibit showrooming behavior. As the fraction of customers who seek price matching increases, profits of both the BM store and the online retailer initially decrease and then may increase, even if there is no showrooming.

Unlike existing studies that ignore different costs between online and offline retailers, the authors set different costs between the BM store and the online retailer to consider the effects of showrooming and price matching strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of three price-matching guarantee (PMG) variables, including refund depth, refund period and competitive scope, on consumer response; the moderating role of consumer search costs is also examined.

This study uses a scenario simulation method with a 2×2×2 factorial design to test the research model and hypotheses.

The results indicate that refund depth has a significant effect on price perception and purchase intention, while competitive scope has a significant effect on purchase intention. In addition, the effects of both refund depth and competitive scope on price perception are moderated by consumer search costs.

This study is a pioneering effort to explore the effects of PMGs variables on consumer response in the context of online retailing. These findings provide several important theoretical and practical implications for the PMG strategy of online retailing.

Seeks to study the effect of a low‐price guarantee (PG) on store price image and store patronage intention. Two kinds of low‐price guarantee are studied: a price‐matching guarantee (PMG) where the price difference is refunded and a price‐beating guarantee (PBG) where a retailer offers an additional compensation.

A questionnaire is used to collect information on 180 non‐student respondents in an experimental framework where low‐price guarantee dimension is manipulated through three advertisements for printers.

Findings are: first, that PG indeed lowers store price image, increases the confidence that the store has lower prices and increases patronage intention; second, that, compared with a PMG whose effects are positive but rather small, a PBG further lowers the store price image on the low prices dimension without increasing the intention to search for lower price, this intention being already rather high in the PMG condition; third, that a larger effect is observed for non‐regular customers.

Research limitations are associated with the data collection. For greater reality the study uses an existing retail chain, so specific effects coming from this chain could influence the results but this bias cannot be evaluated as the experiment involves one retailer only.

Practical implications are that price image can be manipulated without any change in pricing policy by a low‐price guarantee and that the interest to adopt a price‐beating guarantee is real.

The contribution of this study lies in its focus on a large PBG level that retailers already apply and in demonstrating that a PG depends on the relationship between the consumer and the retailer with a stronger effect on non‐regular customers.

This paper aims to examine the status of service guarantees specifically, and cues to quality more generally.

Reflection on the 1998 Journal of Services Marketing article with views both to the academic literature and the presence of guarantees in industry.

Service guarantees still exist, sometimes in their original form (e.g. “100 per cent satisfaction guaranteed!”) and sometimes in a morphed form (e.g. retailers’ promises of price-matching). Research has continued to focus on understanding service guarantees yet there are additional questions left to be addressed. There are also numerous other types of information, in addition to service guarantees, consumers may use as cues to quality.

Service guarantees remain an important and useful tool for services marketers to signal their quality to their customers and to reduce the uncertainty surrounding many services purchases. Other information such as online ratings and reviews through social media can also serve as strong informational cues.

In providing cues to customers about quality, while marketers have long considered the value of price and brand names, the usefulness of service guarantees is still under-studied.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two popular price promotion strategies – price matching guarantees (PMGs) and everyday low prices (EDLP) – and their effects on Chilean consumer behavior in terms of consumer perceptions of low prices, search behavior and purchase intention.

A quasi experiment with three scenarios was conducted to test price promotion effects. Subjects were instructed to respond a questionnaire that included the dependent variables.

Results show that EDLP and PMG strategies increase perceptions of low prices and affect purchase intentions. These effects are significantly higher for stores offering EDLP than PMG. However, when consumers are exposed to two or more price promotion strategies (rather than one) they reduce their purchase intentions for a specific store and increase their search intentions.

This is an initial study exploring the effects of price promotion strategies on consumers. Future research could test the hypotheses advanced in the study across different samples and contexts (supermarkets, department stores, convenience stores, and other retailers) and might privilege external validity, using experiments mimicking decisions with real consequences.

Retailers and marketers in Latin America – particularly those companies stressing price or value as their differential advantage – should consider the use of price promotions when designing marketing strategies. On the other hand, retailers should be aware that an intensive use of these of promotions could lead to increases in consumer search behavior.

While findings from the USA suggest that price promotion strategies can be effective in several contexts, there has been a limited number of studies addressing whether such strategies are effective in other countries, particularly in Latin America and emerging nations.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine consumer perceptions of “scratch and save” (SAS) promotions, which are popular store‐level promotional tools. This paper particularly focuses on investigating the moderating effects of consumers' price consciousness and savings expectations.

Two laboratory experimental studies were employed to examine consumer responses to SAS promotions.

The results of two experiments show that SAS promotions positively affect consumer perceptions of offer value and store prices, and consumers' intentions to shop and spread positive word‐of‐mouth. In particular, the effects of SAS promotions are moderated by consumer price consciousness and expected savings. Furthermore, the first study shows that the level of claimed savings of SAS promotions does not favorably affect consumer reactions. The second study also shows that consumers' discounting of expected savings increases as the level of claimed savings of SAS promotions increases.

Although SAS promotions are widely used by various types of retailers, there really is little known as to how consumers respond to SAS promotions. By providing evidence of the effectiveness of SAS promotions, this paper enables pricing researchers to extend issues related to such promotional tools.

For retailers, the most distinctive finding of this paper is that the level of claimed savings may not significantly affect consumer perceptions and shopping intentions, although an SAS promotion would be an effective promotional tool.

As a preliminary effort to examine the effects of SAS promotions, this paper offers a discussion of the future research opportunities.

This study aims to examine the importance of credit and low price guarantee (LPG) on consumer purchase intention across types of retail store formats in an emerging market context.

A 2 (kirana/modern retail)×2 (high/low LPG)×2 (credit/no credit) experimental design was used for this study. A sample of 200 respondents was asked about their purchase intention for a newly introduced hypothetical toothpaste brand and six hypotheses were tested.

Findings show that credit and level of LPG determine consumer's purchase intention across store formats. The presence of credit and high LPG increases the purchase intention; however, relatively importance of these two varies by type of store. The absence of credit at kirana store definitely reduces the buying intention, while same is not true for modern retail store, where level of LPG is more important than the credit. Interestingly, buyer is likely to discount high LPG for a month's credit offered by a kirana store.

The study can help practitioners and scholars to understand consumer responses to credit and LPG in buying decisions, and subsequently in designing a better product offer at a particular store format in emerging markets.

Important insights are provided about the consumer behavior resulting from the presence or absence of credit and high or low levels of LPG in an emerging market context. The study also has public policy implications in a country where FDI in retail is a hotly debated topic.

Recent multichannel research suggests that consumers use multiple channels to reap attribute-based benefits which have led to showrooming phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons for consumers’ showrooming behaviour and propose a comprehensive model based on application and extension of the “Theory of planned behaviour”.

Using the probability sampling approach, 278 complete responses were obtained via web-based surveys for analysing the showrooming behaviour. The research model was tested using the “Partial least squares method” which follows a variance-based structural equation modelling approach.

The results of the study indicate that “touching and feeling the product” and “sales staff assistance” motivated customers to visit the physical store before buying online. “Better online service quality” and “lower prices online” induced customers to later purchase online. Price conscious customers and those with the ability to use multiple channels were more likely to engage in showrooming behaviour.

The generalization of the findings may be limited because the data were collected from a small sample size. The subject calls for more extensive research for drawing generalizations due to lack of the substantive literature on the core area of study.

The model proposed will help retailers in understanding the showrooming phenomenon which recent researchers have considered as a threat to retail. The study provides basis for devising strategies to defend showrooming customers.

This paper adds to the body of knowledge in retailing by proposing a model on showrooming which is an emerging area of research in the present retail landscape.

Organizations (data gatherers in the context) drown in data while at the same time seeking managerially relevant insights. Academics (data hunters) have to deal with decreasing respondent participation and escalating costs of data collection while at the same time seeking to increase the managerial relevance of their research. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework on how, managers and academics can collaborate better to leverage each other’s resources.

This research synthesizes the academic and the managerial literature on the realities and priorities of practitioners and academics with regard to data. Based on the literature, reflections from the world’s leading service research centers, and the authors’ own experiences, the authors develop recommendations on how to collaborate in research.

Four dimensions of different data realities and priorities were identified: research problem, research resources, research process and research outcome. In total, 26 recommendations are presented that aim to equip academics to leverage the potential of corporate data for research purposes and to help managers to leverage research results for their business.

This paper argues that both practitioners and academics have a lot to gain from collaborating by exchanging corporate data for scientific approaches and insights. However, the gap between different realities and priorities needs to be bridged when doing so. The paper first identifies data realities and priorities and then develops recommendations on how to best collaborate given these differences.

This research has the potential to contribute to managerial practice by informing academics on how to better collaborate with the managerial world and thereby facilitate collaboration and the dissemination of academic research for the benefit of both parties.

Whereas the previous literature has primarily examined practitioner–academic collaboration in general, this study is the first to focus specifically on the aspects related to sharing corporate data and to elaborate on academic and corporate objectives with regard to data and insights.