An experiment conducted to examine the effects of different discount formats on consumer purchases is reported. Participants made a series of purchase decisions for chocolate bars given (a) “rebates” from the listed price, (b) “matching” quantities of chocolates for each bar purchased, and (c) simple price reductions. Contrary to standard theoretical predictions, and consistent results in the context of charitable contributions by Eckel and Grossman (2003), we find that participants purchase significantly more chocolate bars under a “matching” sales format than under a comparable “rebate” format. Inattention to the net consequences of decisions, as well as some “rebate aversion”, explain the preference for matching discounts.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by VCU School of Business, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
0401.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)