IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v152y2022icp70-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reference price effect of partially similar online products in the consideration stage

Author

Listed:
  • Qin, Chang-Xiong
  • Liu, Zhao

Abstract

Reference price is an important basis for online retailers to formulate pricing strategies. Existing studies on the reference price effect primarily use completely similar products for price comparison analysis, while using partially similar products is difficult to study the reference price effect due to weak comparability. Therefore, based on spatial econometrics and text mining, this study designs a research framework to analyze the reference price effect of partially similar online products. We explore three reference price scenarios for partially similar online products in the consideration stage of online shopping, namely: the reference price effects of retail price and unit size price, and the influence of brand on the reference price effect. This study extends the research on the reference price effect under these three scenarios from completely similar online products to partially similar online products, which provides novel insights into the reference price effect of partially similar online products.

Suggested Citation

  • Qin, Chang-Xiong & Liu, Zhao, 2022. "Reference price effect of partially similar online products in the consideration stage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 70-81.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:152:y:2022:i:c:p:70-81
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.06.043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322005859
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.06.043?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jasjit Singh & Matt Marx, 2013. "Geographic Constraints on Knowledge Spillovers: Political Borders vs. Spatial Proximity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 2056-2078, September.
    2. Yongjin Park & Youngsok Bang & Jae-Hyeon Ahn, 2020. "How Does the Mobile Channel Reshape the Sales Distribution in E-Commerce?," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1164-1182, December.
    3. Mayhew, Glenn E & Winer, Russell S, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Internal and External Reference Prices Using Scanner Data," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 19(1), pages 62-70, June.
    4. Ioana Chioveanu & Jidong Zhou, 2013. "Price Competition with Consumer Confusion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(11), pages 2450-2469, November.
    5. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Liu, Zhao & Zhou, Si-Ming & Qin, Chang-Xiong & Zhang, Huan, 2018. "The impact of China's Central Rise Policy on carbon emissions at the stage of operation in road sector," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 159-173.
    6. Barney Tan & Cheng Yi & Hock C. Chan, 2015. "Research Note—Deliberation Without Attention: The Latent Benefits of Distracting Website Features for Online Purchase Decisions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(2), pages 437-455, June.
    7. Marshall Fisher & Santiago Gallino & Jun Li, 2018. "Competition-Based Dynamic Pricing in Online Retailing: A Methodology Validated with Field Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2496-2514, June.
    8. Matthew D. Rocklage & Derek D. Rucker & Loran F. Nordgren, 2021. "Mass-scale emotionality reveals human behaviour and marketplace success," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(10), pages 1323-1329, October.
    9. Aron Culotta & Jennifer Cutler, 2016. "Mining Brand Perceptions from Twitter Social Networks," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 343-362, May.
    10. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2009. "Brand and Price Advertising in Online Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(7), pages 1139-1151, July.
    11. Hongmin Li & Scott Webster & Gwangjae Yu, 2020. "Product Design Under Multinomial Logit Choices: Optimization of Quality and Prices in an Evolving Product Line," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1011-1025, September.
    12. Steven Kou & Xianhua Peng & Haowen Zhong, 2018. "Asset Pricing with Spatial Interaction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2083-2101, May.
    13. Wilfred Amaldoss & Chuan He, 2018. "Reference-Dependent Utility, Product Variety, and Price Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4302-4316, September.
    14. Sun, Yeneng, 2006. "The exact law of large numbers via Fubini extension and characterization of insurable risks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 31-69, January.
    15. Biswas, Abhijit, 1992. "The moderating role of brand familiarity in reference price perceptions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 251-262, November.
    16. Amit Mehra & Sajeesh Sajeesh & Sudhir Voleti, 2020. "Impact of Reference Prices on Product Positioning and Profits," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 882-892, April.
    17. Joris Pinkse & Margaret E. Slade & Craig Brett, 2002. "Spatial Price Competition: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1111-1153, May.
    18. Chunhua Wu & Koray Cosguner, 2020. "Profiting from the Decoy Effect: A Case Study of an Online Diamond Retailer," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(5), pages 974-995, September.
    19. Gurumurthy Kalyanaram & Russell S. Winer, 1995. "Empirical Generalizations from Reference Price Research," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3_supplem), pages 161-169.
    20. Manning, Kenneth C. & Sprott, David E. & Miyazaki, Anthony D., 2003. "Unit price usage knowledge: Conceptualization and empirical assessment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 367-377, May.
    21. Bennett Chiles, 2021. "Shrouded Prices and Firm Reputation: Evidence from the U.S. Hotel Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 964-983, February.
    22. Wendy W. Moe & David A. Schweidel, 2012. "Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation, and Evolution," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 372-386, May.
    23. Zhuang, Hejun & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Lin, Yuanfang, 2018. "Why is Price Dispersion Higher Online than Offline? The Impact of Retailer Type and Shopping Risk on Price Dispersion," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 136-153.
    24. Deepa Chandrasekaran & Raji Srinivasan & Debika Sihi, 2018. "Effects of offline ad content on online brand search: insights from super bowl advertising," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 403-430, May.
    25. Zhang, Xinyu & Yu, Jihai, 2018. "Spatial weights matrix selection and model averaging for spatial autoregressive models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 1-18.
    26. Yao, Jun & Oppewal, Harmen, 2016. "Unit Pricing Increases Price Sensitivity Even When Products are of Identical Size," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 109-121.
    27. Juan Alcácer & Mercedes Delgado, 2016. "Spatial Organization of Firms and Location Choices Through the Value Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3213-3234, November.
    28. Jun Yao & Harmen Oppewal & Di Wang, 2020. "Cheaper and smaller or more expensive and larger: how consumers respond to unit price increase tactics that simultaneously change product price and package size," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 1075-1094, November.
    29. Kachersky, Luke, 2011. "Reduce Content or Raise Price? The Impact of Persuasion Knowledge and Unit Price Increase Tactics on Retailer and Product Brand Attitudes," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(4), pages 479-488.
    30. Viglia, Giampaolo & Abrate, Graziano, 2014. "How social comparison influences reference price formation in a service context," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 168-180.
    31. Manel Baucells & Woonam Hwang, 2017. "A Model of Mental Accounting and Reference Price Adaptation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4201-4218, December.
    32. Daniel S. Putler, 1992. "Incorporating Reference Price Effects into a Theory of Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(3), pages 287-309.
    33. Johnson, Jennifer Wiggins & Cui, Annie Peng, 2013. "To influence or not to influence: External reference price strategies in pay-what-you-want pricing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 275-281.
    34. Dokyun Lee & Kartik Hosanagar, 2021. "How Do Product Attributes and Reviews Moderate the Impact of Recommender Systems Through Purchase Stages?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 524-546, January.
    35. Mitra, Satanik & Jenamani, Mamata, 2020. "OBIM: A computational model to estimate brand image from online consumer review," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 213-226.
    36. Wang, Haizhong & Liu, Di, 2020. "The differentiated impact of perceived brand competence type on brand extension evaluation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 400-410.
    37. Samir Mamadehussene, 2020. "The Interplay Between Obfuscation and Prominence in Price Comparison Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4843-4862, October.
    38. Jacobson, Robert & Obermiller, Carl, 1990. "The Formation of Expected Future Price: A Reference Price for Forward-Looking Consumers," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(4), pages 420-432, March.
    39. Kurt P. Munz & Minah H. Jung & Adam L. Alter, 2020. "Name Similarity Encourages Generosity: A Field Experiment in Email Personalization," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(6), pages 1071-1091, November.
    40. Steffen Zimmermann & Philipp Herrmann & Dennis Kundisch & Barrie R. Nault, 2018. "Decomposing the Variance of Consumer Ratings and the Impact on Price and Demand," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 984-1002, December.
    41. Hillen, Judith & Fedoseeva, Svetlana, 2021. "E-commerce and the end of price rigidity?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 63-73.
    42. Dongwon Lee & Anandasivam Gopal & Sung-Hyuk Park, 2020. "Different but Equal? A Field Experiment on the Impact of Recommendation Systems on Mobile and Personal Computer Channels in Retail," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 892-912, September.
    43. Bodur, H. Onur & Klein, Noreen M. & Arora, Neeraj, 2015. "Online Price Search: Impact of Price Comparison Sites on Offline Price Evaluations," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 125-139.
    44. L. Jeff Hong & Sandeep Juneja & Guangwu Liu, 2017. "Kernel Smoothing for Nested Estimation with Application to Portfolio Risk Measurement," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 657-673, June.
    45. Youngsoo Kim & Ramayya Krishnan, 2015. "On Product-Level Uncertainty and Online Purchase Behavior: An Empirical Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2449-2467, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kjellberg, Hans & Sjögren, Ebba & Krafve, Linus Johansson, 2023. "The functions of known to be inaccurate prices in markets: A cross-country comparison of pharmaceutical list pricing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prakash, David & Spann, Martin, 2022. "Dynamic pricing and reference price effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 300-314.
    2. Jun Yao & Harmen Oppewal & Di Wang, 2020. "Cheaper and smaller or more expensive and larger: how consumers respond to unit price increase tactics that simultaneously change product price and package size," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 1075-1094, November.
    3. Bambauer-Sachse, Silke & Massera, Laura, 2015. "Interaction effects of different price claims and contextual factors on consumers' reference price adaptation after exposure to a price promotion," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 63-73.
    4. Biondi, Beatrice & Cornelsen, Laura & Mazzocchi, Mario & Smith, Richard, 2020. "Between preferences and references: Asymmetric price elasticities and the simulation of fiscal policies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 108-128.
    5. Rabbanee, Fazlul K. & Roy, Rajat & Sharma, Piyush, 2022. "Contextual differences in the moderating effects of price consciousness and social desirability in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 13-25.
    6. Wei, Xiaohan & Chen, Xuqi & Gao, Zhifeng & Jensen, Kimberly L. & Yu, Tun-Hsiang & DeLong, Karen L., 2020. "The Reference Price Effect on Willingness-to-Pay Estimates: Evidence from Eco-labeled Food Products," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304573, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Kopalle, Praveen K. & Kannan, P.K. & Boldt, Lin Bao & Arora, Neeraj, 2012. "The impact of household level heterogeneity in reference price effects on optimal retailer pricing policies," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 102-114.
    8. Friesen, Mark, 2020. "A dynamic perspective on consumers’ price fairness perception: Empirical evidence from the airline industry," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 74(4), pages 403-425.
    9. Katina Kulow & Keith S. Coulter & Michael J. Barone & Xingbo (Bo) Li, 2022. "How internal reference prices determine when a price’s location will influence consumer judgments," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 563-575, December.
    10. Neumann, Nico & Böckenholt, Ulf, 2014. "A Meta-analysis of Loss Aversion in Product Choice," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 182-197.
    11. Lillian L. Cheng & Kent B. Monroe, 2013. "An appraisal of behavioral price research (part 1): price as a physical stimulus," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 3(3), pages 103-129, September.
    12. Paha, Johannes, 2019. "Anchoring, Reference Prices, and List Price Collusion," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203625, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. David R. Bell & James M. Lattin, 2000. "Looking for Loss Aversion in Scanner Panel Data: The Confounding Effect of Price Response Heterogeneity," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 185-200, May.
    14. Weeks, Clinton S. & Mortimer, Gary & Page, Lionel, 2016. "Understanding how consumer education impacts shoppers over time: A longitudinal field study of unit price usage," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 198-209.
    15. Preeti Narwal & J. K. Nayak, 2020. "Investigating relative impact of reference prices on customers’ price evaluation in absence of posted prices: a case of Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) pricing," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(4), pages 234-247, August.
    16. Yuval Arbel & Danny Ben-Shahar & Stuart Gabriel, 2016. "Are The Disabled Less Loss Averse? Evidence From A Natural Policy Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1291-1318, April.
    17. Robert Slonim & Ellen Garbarino, 2009. "Similarities and differences between stockpiling and reference effects," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 351-371.
    18. Chandrashekaran, R., 2001. "The implications of individual differences in reference price utilization for designing effective price communications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 85-91, August.
    19. Wolk, Agnieszka & Spann, Martin, 2008. "The effects of reference prices on bidding behavior in interactive pricing mechanisms," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 2-18.
    20. Teck H. Ho & Noah Lim & Colin Camerer, 2005. "Modeling the Psychology of Consumer and Firm Behavior with Behavioral Economics," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000476, UCLA Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:152:y:2022:i:c:p:70-81. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.