复杂折扣的区间计算及折扣幻觉发生的认知机制研究

A Research on Interval Calculation of Complex Discount and Cognitive Mechanism of Discount Illusion

以"满就送"、"满就减"、"存就算"为代表的复杂折扣已成为零售商开展统一促销的重要形式。由于复杂折扣的实际折扣率难以计算,消费者容易产生"折扣幻觉"。笔者通过国内零售商开展复杂折扣的实际案例,总结出三种具有代表性复杂折扣的使用条件;在此基础上,借助数学归纳法,构造了复杂折扣的理论区间,验证了"折扣漏出"的存在,并明确指出复杂折扣是一种区间折扣。从三种折扣区间来看,参与"满就减"对消费者是最划算的,"满就送"是最不划算的,而"存就算"则是风险最大的。此外,我们还结合认知心理学的最新研究成果提出了相应的假设,就折扣幻觉发生的认知机制展开理论探讨,并指出,复杂折扣信息呈现方式的设计利用了消费者习惯于直觉决策的认知缺陷,诱发了"锚定效应、过度自信、时间压力与认知懒惰",并由此导致了认知偏误或折扣幻觉。本研究成果为开展复杂折扣的实证研究奠定了一定的理论基础,对强化商业伦理,促进政府加强零售促销管理具有重要的帮助。

The complex discount, such as ＂purchase up to X yuan to gain Y yuan gift cards＂, ＂purchase up to X yuan and to gain Y yuan off＂ and ＂deposit up to X yuan and can buy Y yuan goods＂, has become an important tool of unified promotion which is used by retailers in order to increase their gross income. Since the actual concessionary rate of the complex discount is difficult to work out, consumers are easily caused ＂discount illusion＂. The conditions of the three Kinds of representatively complex discount were summarized according val of the complex tence of discount 1 to the practical cases of Chinese retailers. Based on these conditions, the theoretical interdiscount was built with the method of mathematical induction. The results proved the exis- eakage and indicated that complex discount is a kind of interval discount. For the consu- mers, among the three Kinds of complex discounts, ＂purchase up to X yuan and gain Y yuan reduction＂ is the most cost-effective one, ＂purchase up to X yuan and gain Y yuan gift cards＂ is the worst one, and ＂deposit up to X yuan and can buy Y yuan goods＂ is the most risky one. Moreover, with the latest research results of cognitive psychology, we proposed seven reasonable hypotheses and discussed the cognitive mechanism of dis- count illusion. We asserted that the information presentation of complex discounts does take advantage of the cognitive defects of consumers who are accustomed to intuition heuristic, thus trigger the anchoring effect, overconfidence, time pressure and cognitive laziness, and led to cognitive bias or discount illusion of consumers. In a word, this study not only laid the theoretical foundations for empirical research of complex discount but also is of sovereign importance to enhance the business ethics and promote the government to strengthen the management of retailing promotion.