促銷價格標示方式與內部參考價格對消費者行為之影響

The Effects of Promotional Price Format and Internal Reference Price on Consumers’ Behavior

價格促銷是常見的企業行銷活動，其目的在提高消費者之知覺獲得價值，進而提高購買意願。本研究之目的為探討零售商在進行價格促銷活動時，同時標示過去售價、促銷價以及市價之情形下，對消費者知覺品質、內部參考價格以及知覺價值之可能影響。過去在參考價格之相關文獻中，較偏重於探討二種價格類型間的比較（如市價與售價），但消費者在賣場中可能同時接收多樣的價格訊息。因此，本研究操弄三種價格訊息，採2（過去售價：低、高）x 2（促銷價：低、高）x2（市價：合理、誇大）之組間實驗設計。研究結果顯示，(1)消費者之內部參考價格會受知覺品質、零售商過去售價、市價之影響，但不受促銷價之影響；(2)當消費者內部參考價格愈高、或是促銷價格愈低時，會增加消費者之知覺交易價值；(3)提昇消費者之知覺品質與知覺交易價值，有助於進一步強化消費者之知覺獲得價值；(4)消費者之購買意願會隨消費者之知覺獲得價值提高而增加，但搜尋意圖則不受知覺獲得價值之影響。

Consumers’ purchase and search intention are usually determined by their acquisition value from the products. However, past researches have shown that acquisition value is a function of both perceived product quality and transaction value. Therefore, crucial issue is whether the firms can influence consumers' internal reference prices through external reference prices (i.e. market price, manufacturer’s suggested retail price, past selling price and current promotional price) and then change their perceived value and perceived quality. This study is aimed at exploring the possible effects of external reference prices (i.e. past selling price, current promotional price, and current market price) and consumers’ perceived quality on their perceived values (i.e. perceived transaction and acquisition value), search intention and purchase intention. Consumers form their internal reference prices based on the external reference prices to which they are exposed. Much of the research to date in consumer behavior has focused on consumers’ comparison between market price and current selling price (Grewal et al, 1998; Chang et al. 1999; Chang et al. 2000). Little attention has been given to the effects of firm’s past selling price. In the real world, retailers often label past selling prices on the products, which are on sale. Researchers recently have shown that consumer overstocking is more common with larger discounts (i.e. Krishna, 1994) and deep discounts affect brand choice and purchase quantity more than frequent discounts (i.e. Jedidi et al., 1999). These findings imply that past selling price plays an important role in consumer price perception due to the discount effects. Therefore, this research is devoted at empirically testing the relationships among perceived product quality, external reference price, internal reference price, transaction value, acquisition value, and consumers' purchase as well as search intention. A conceptual model is proposed to demonstrate the relationship among those constructs. It contains four exogenous constructs (market price, past selling price, current selling price and perceived quality) and five endogenous constructs (internal reference price, perceived transaction value, perceived acquisition value, purchase intention, and search intention). A 2 (past selling prices: low and high) × 2 (promotional prices: low and high) x 2 (p market prices: plausible and implausible) between-subject factorial design on 233 college students is employed. A pretest is utilized to select the target product (i.e., Levi’s Jeans) and multiple price levels (i.e. the treatment levels of market price, past selling price and current promotional price). Additionally, data in this study is analyzed by LISREL 8.3 to test the relationships among the constructs and the goodness-of-fit of the model. The results show that consumers’ purchase intention is influenced by perceived values. The higher perceived acquisition value lead to higher purchase intention. As to perceived acquisition value, higher perceived transaction value and perceived quality induce higher perceived acquisition value. These results also support that a causal relationship between perceived acquisition value and perceived transaction value. Furthermore, it is found that perceived transaction value is influenced by both internal reference price and current promotional price. Higher internal reference price and lower current promotional price induces higher perceived transaction value. As for internal reference price, it is influenced by past selling price, market price and perceived quality, but not by current promotional price. It is possible that for famous brands, consumers may consider the current promotional price as a short-term price. Therefore, their internal price standard shifts rely more on the past selling price and market price, but less on current promotional price. In addition, it is interesting to find college students in Taiwan always have higher search intention, and there is no relationship between perceived acquisition value and search intention. Finally, the indices of Goodness-of-Fit Statistics by LISREL show adequate fit (i.e. GFI=0.85 and CFI=0.91). Theoretical contributions and marketing implications of this study are also addressed.