My reaction is a mix of believing that I’m getting away with something and appreciating the flexibility of the retailer. At some level, I realize they surely extend that same allowance to anybody who asks and that the store is pleased to have me spend my $30 or more in order to get the $5 credit. Yet none of that gets in the way of me considering myself a winner. It’s as if I appreciate the discount more than if I’d used the coupon during the official interval.
Results from a group of researchers at Grenoble École de Management, Baruch College, The Pennsylvania State University, and Towson University indicate my reactions are perfectly typical. In their studies, consumers who thought they’d missed out on a discount and then found they were eligible were more likely to feel special, to consider themselves as getting greater value from the discount, and to be willing to purchase the item than did those people who knew their eligibility from the start.
Another approach to this situation is to figure that if people miss a chance to buy merchandise you offer at a discount, you’d like them to feel sorry about it. That way, they’ll stay alert for the next time you announce a sales event. You hold sales to draw traffic into your store so shoppers will buy not only the substantially discounted merchandise, but also the items you’re selling at higher profit margins. You want everybody to notice when there’s a big sale.
Unfortunately, though, many shoppers who miss a big sale will experience regret in a way which leads them to dislike the retailer and criticize the merchandise. Maybe it’s because people blame the retailer for what was their own fault. Maybe it’s because people want to avoid reminders of the opportunity they missed. In the studies, a group of participants who expected to get the discount and then were told they wouldn’t were less likely to want to buy the item than were those who hadn’t expected a discount at all.
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