Why does mobile payment promote purchases? Revisiting the pain of paying, and understanding the implicit pleasure via selective attention

Abstract

The past years have witnessed a phenomenal growth of the mobile payment market, but how mobile payment affects purchase behavior receives less attention from academics. Recent studies suggested that lower pain of paying may not fully clarify the relationship between mobile payment and increased purchases (i.e., mobile payment effect). The current research first introduced price level in Study 1 and demonstrated that the pain of paying served as an underlying mechanism only in the high‐price condition rather than the low‐price condition. As such, Study 2 was conducted in a low‐price context to address the uncovered mechanisms. We propose a new concept of “pleasure of payment” that is defined as an implicit and consumption‐related hedonic response based on the cue theory of consumption. By tracking spontaneous attention to positive attributes (i.e., benefits) of products, Study 2 demonstrated this implicit pleasure as a psychological mechanism for the mobile payment effect when the pain of paying was not at play. These findings have important implications for mobile payment in research and practice by identifying price level as a boundary condition for the role of pain of paying and understanding the positive downstream consequences of mobile payment usage on consumer psychology.