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This study aims to examine the impact of five consumption values (i.e. ecological, functional, symbolic, experiential and epistemic) on consumers’ intentions to adopt green products. Using Thaler’s utility theory, the authors investigate the indirect effect of values on purchase intention through acquisition utility and transaction utility. Two moderators (materialism orientation and value consciousness) further influence the strength of the effect of consumption values on transaction utility.

The authors used a survey design (N = 437 Chinese customers recruited through a Chinese online panel provider) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test six hypothesized relationships in the proposed model. Moderated SEM was used for moderation analysis.

Most hypothesized relationships in the model were confirmed, with the exception of the functional value–transaction utility link and the moderating effect of materialism on the experiential value–transaction utility relationship.

Larger-scale research may help to determine whether there are more significant differences in consumer evaluations of different types of green products.

As the concept of green marketing in China evolves, firms should continue to stress the importance and value of green products regarding individuals’ care for the environment, status and self-image. Further, firms should conduct systematic utility analyses and address acquisition and price equity in a strategic process.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to adapt utility theory to green consumption and proposes a clearly defined and well-substantiated set of utility types by merging economic and green consumption literature.

This study aims to investigate determinants of permission-granting intention of consumers based on transaction utility theory. The study also was designed to investigate the role of two individual characteristics, coupon proneness and fear of spamming as well as gender difference. Mobile coupons have quickly become an important marketing tactic. However, our understanding of mobile coupon usage is limited because previous studies of coupon usage do not examine key characteristics of new technology-based coupons. Therefore, research in this specific context is necessary.

An online survey was used and US adult consumers (N = 658) were recruited to empirically test the model. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results provided support for the proposed model. The data confirmed the evaluation process of a potential transaction using mobile coupons hypothesized based on transaction utility theory. Gender differences were tested using multi-group analysis. There was a significant difference between females and males. Overall, negative factors, fear of spamming and perceived risk, played a more important role in the model for females than males.

The study provided theoretical support for transaction utility theory in the context of mobile coupon usage decision. Also, the study advances understanding of unique issues of mobile coupon marketing by addressing permission-granting intention and gender difference in the process of evaluation.

This study aims to test Lamberton and Rose’s (2012) commercial sharing utility model of access-based consumption use in three different contexts: car-sharing, room-sharing and household goods purchases. More importantly, this research extends the model by examining the effects of emerging adulthood as a life-stage on perceived value of social applications that facilitate and promote transaction utility, called shareaids.

A questionnaire designed to evaluate the effects of emerging adulthood and sharing utilities on intention to use sharing services was developed and administered to 345 respondents at a Midwestern US university. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Results indicate that flexibility utility had the strongest direct impact on intention to use sharing consumption while also having indirect effects in all contexts examined. The emerging adulthood life-stage was found to affect transaction utility and shareaids as predicted, and shareaids positively influenced consumers’ perception of the social utility value of access-based consumption.

The generalizability of this study is limited by its use of a student sample. Also, the study suffers from inherent limitations linked to self-reported survey research.

Sharing services that have a strong social component could use shareaids to gain a competitive advantage. Examples of shareaid application include split bills for multiple payments to split fares among friends and social media transaction tools. Shareaid applications can enhance consumers’ perception of social value and the overall shareability value of the sharing service.

This is the first known study to test the effects of emerging adulthood as a life-stage on perceived value of social applications that facilitate and promote transaction utility, called shareaids.

In promotional ads that contain both the Regular Price and Sale Price information, this paper aims to investigate whether changing the font sizes of these two prices has an effect on how consumers process the ad message. The authors use acquisition-transaction utility perspective to identify key differences in mechanisms invoked by the larger font size of the Regular Price vs that of the Sale Price.

Study 1 uses eye-tracking apparatus to study subjects’ responses to a full-color, realistic-looking ad for a digital camera. Study 2 uses a survey questionnaire to gauge subjects’ responses to a similar print ad. The font sizes of Regular Price and Sale price were manipulated while keeping all the other elements of the ad the same. Subjects were undergraduate students who participated in the study for a small incentive.

The authors find that making the relative font size of Regular Price bigger invokes a transaction-utility mechanism where customers’ attention is focused on the savings that can be had using the promotion. A bigger font size of Sale Price invokes an acquisition-utility mechanism that draws on the customers’ value consciousness.

The use of student subjects and only one product category in the experiments may limit the generalizability of the study’s findings.

In print ads, managers predominantly use a bigger font size for the Sale Price. This study suggests that the choice of a bigger font size should really be driven by the objective of the promotion: a bigger font size for Sale Price is advised if the objective is to take an acquisition utility approach, whereas a bigger font size for Regular Price is advised for using a transaction utility approach.

This study is the first attempt at using an acquisition-transaction utility perspective for understanding the use of relative font sizes in the context of price promotions.

The purpose of this study is to examine if consumers, after missing a price discount on a desired product, prefer to buy the latter at a smaller discount or prefer to pay full price but offset some of it with windfall money.

In four experiments, participants imagine that they have missed an opportunity to buy a box of chocolates at $50 off and are offered a second chance to buy them at a less attractive discount ($25) or pay full price, but partially offset the full price with various windfall lotteries ($25, $50, $75) and gift cards ($50).

Participants are more likely to buy the chocolates at the less attractive (second) discount rather than pay full price using windfall money. In doing so, they show that they are willing to be more, rather than less, poor from an overall wealth perspective to acquire the chocolates. This anomaly surfaces irrespective of the windfall amounts or preference elicitation methods (joint versus separate evaluation). The negative transaction utility of paying full price mediates the purchase method effect (discount versus windfall) on purchase likelihood, but gift cards are able to reduce the negative transaction utility of paying full price.

The research reveals a judgmental anomaly in how consumers assess product acquisition value following a lost opportunity and suggests that marketing managers may be able to reduce consumer inertia by strategically matching rewards with the source of the lost chance.

Previous research indicates the aversive effect of low consumer ratings on consumers’ purchasing decisions. This paper aims to apply decision justifiability theory to investigate how price promotions – price discount and price bundling – can reduce this effect.

Two scenario-based experiments were administered among college students (Experiment 1) and online consumer panels (Experiment 2) to test the research hypotheses.

When time-to-purchase is long (vs short), a large discount is more effective in alleviating consumers’ negative responses toward products with low consumer ratings. However, when a price discount is presented as a bundle rather than a separate deal, a small discount size becomes as attractive as a large discount size for consumers with a longer time-to-purchase.

This paper identifies two controllable factors, price discounts and price bundling, that could help to alleviate the negative impact of low consumer ratings. Marketing managers can apply the findings of this paper as guidelines to deal with the aversive effect of low consumer ratings.

This paper makes an initial attempt to examine situations where consumers would be less averse to products with low consumer ratings. It identifies the roles of two price promotions (i.e. price discount size and price bundling) and an important contextual factor (i.e. time-to-purchase) that influence consumers’ decision justifiability and, subsequently, alter consumers’ online purchase decisions for such products.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel approach based on utility mining for store layout.

A utility mining-based data mining algorithm is utilized in this paper.

A real-life case study in a supermarket is conducted to illustrate the proposed approach. The findings show that the proposed approach can be used easily and efficiently to arrange store layout.

There are two limitations to this study. First, space allocation to each product family is not considered. Second, product placement in each product family is not taken into account in the proposed approach.

In this paper, a novel approach is proposed for business intelligence in retail business. The proposed approach uses a utility-based data mining approach, namely, the high-utility itemset mining (HUIM) algorithm, to rearrange store layout and to determine the relations among product families. The quantities and prices of items purchased corresponding to product families are taken into account in the proposed approach to address the needs in practice. Business intelligence software is also developed as an integral part of the proposed approach to utilize the HUIM algorithm.

An open question of behavioral pricing literature is: What are the factors which influence consumers’ judgments of acquisition value and transaction value? An important framework to explain consumers’ shopping and purchase decisions is their decision-making styles. This paper aims to examine the influence of consumers’ decision-making styles, that is, perfectionistic high-quality conscious, brand conscious-price equals quality, novelty-fashion conscious, recreational-hedonistic, price conscious-value for money, impulsive-careless, habitual-brand loyal and confused by overchoice on their judgments of acquisition value and transaction value.

From the literature, a conceptual framework was formulated. Data was collected from a survey of 304 respondents. The measurement model was tested using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The structural model was tested using structural equation modeling.

The consumers’ judgments of acquisition value and transaction value vary with their decision-making styles. The measurement and structural models exhibited good fit, and 12 of the 16 proposed hypotheses were found to be significant.

The respondents for this research study were urban and postgraduate students.

The results of this study can help managers personalize their promotional offers and market offerings targeted at consumers with different decision-making styles.

Behavioral pricing literature has not convincingly shown that consumers make the judgments of the two values, acquisition value and transaction value, in a purchase scenario. There is limited literature on the impact of decision-making styles on the marketing variables. The results of this study contribute to the literature by showing that consumers make the judgments of these two values, and these judgments vary with their decision-making styles. Also, this is one of only a few studies to examine the two components of the purchase value in an Indian context.

Draws from various theoretical bases and empirical research to offer managerial recommendations concerning the communication of sale price information in advertisements. Addresses the manner in which the manipulation of price cues, semantic cues and product cues in an advertisement can enhanceperceptions of utility via increases in the internal reference price, the perceived value implied by the offering price, and perceptions of product quality.

Social shopping platforms have flourished by using multiple social shopping features, yet little is known about how the combination of these features affects purchase intention, particularly in terms of the product itself. The purpose of the paper is to draw on the concept of social shopping feature richness, adopting a formative approach on the survey used, and endeavors to reveal the concept's impact on consumers' buying intention from a product perspective.

Building on mental accounting and signaling theories, a theoretical model is proposed and empirically evaluated with 356 samples collected using a questionnaire survey.

The results suggest that social shopping feature richness promotes consumers' consumption by providing information signals to satisfy acquisition utility and transaction utility. Specifically, social shopping feature richness enhances perceived product quality, while decreasing negative perceptions regarding price. Moreover, perceived product quality and perceived price significantly influence buying intention through the mechanism of perceived value.

The authors' study highlights the role of the combination of functionally diverse social shopping features on product sales for social shopping platforms.