Effects of Price Discounts and Bonus Packs on Online Impulse Buying

Abstract

We investigated and compared the effects of 2 forms of sales promotion, namely, price discounts and bonus packs, on online impulse buying. Participants were 280 undergraduate business students at a Chinese university, who responded to a promotion on a mock website. Previous researchers have shown that bonus packs have a greater impact on offline impulse buying than do price discounts. However, our findings were different in the online impulse buying context, in which price discounts resulted in greater impulse buying intention than did bonus packs when the product was hedonic, and bonus packs were a more effective sales promotion than price discounts when the product was utilitarian. In addition, price discounts resulted in greater impulse buying intention than did bonus packs when the product was inexpensive, whereas bonus packs were a more effective sales promotion than were price discounts when the product was expensive.

The state of online impulse-buying research: A literature analysis

“…The belief about the use of recommendation agents to search for recommended products [20] Use of search mechanism The belief about the information generated by the website [28] Visual appeal The perceived visual appeal through website design (e.g., text, style, graphics, colors, logos, themes, and slogans) [6,15,30,32,35] 38 Discount Offering price discounts [56] Product type Changing the product type (Hedonic product vs. Utilitarian product) [56] Product price Changing the product price (Expensive vs. Inexpensive) [56] Scarcity Limiting the promotion frequency, the offer period, or the quantity [60] Research Design: Survey…”

“…Inexpensive) [56] Scarcity Limiting the promotion frequency, the offer period, or the quantity [60] Research Design: Survey…”

Can Bonus Packs Mislead Consumers? A Demonstration of How Behavioural Consumer Research Can Inform Unfair Commercial Practices Law on the Example of the ECJ’s Mars Judgement

“…Prior studies in the marketing and consumer behaviour literature have examined consumer response to bonus packs in general, often in comparison to price discounts (Hardesty and Bearden 2003;Xu and Huang 2014). This stream of literature has indicated a preference of consumers for bonus packs over price discounts for virtue products (Mishra and Mishra 2011) and for smaller-sized promotions (Diamond 1992).…”

The effect of the situational factor, store atmosphere, and sales promotion on hedonic shopping motivation and its implication on supermarket consumer impulsive buying in Manado city

“…Based on previous research, some sales promotion indicators can affect impulsive buying, for instance: product discount and cheaper price (Zhou and Wong, 2003); coupons, vouchers, promotions and advertising as well as low prices (Tendai and Crispen, 2009); free product and price discount (Karbasivar and Yarahmadi, 2011); and bonus packs (Xu and Huang, 2014). Nevertheless, another study by Nagadeepa, Tamil Selvi & Pushpa (2015) showed that the three techniques, namely sales promotion coupons, packaging prices, and the contest do not affect impulsive buying.…”