过多促销品会导致过多选择效应吗?——时间压力的调节作用

Do Abundant Promotional Products Cause Too Much Choice Effect?The Moderating Role of Time Pressure

本文依据过多选择效应和时间压力等理论,借助心理学实验的方法,检验了过多促销品对消费者决策心理和行为的影响机制,以及促销时间压力在过多促销品决策中的调节作用,并籍此探究了促销失灵与过多促销品之间的内在关联。研究发现:第一,过多促销品决策中同样存在过多选择效应,受此影响,消费者会体验到强烈的负性认知反应与负性情绪体验,并由此导致延迟选择及促销失灵。第二,在促销时间限制的调节下,一方面,促销品数量对消费者负性认知反应和情绪体验均有显著差异;另一方面,促销品数量对消费者决策行为的影响有明显不同。当促销品数量多及时间限制短时,消费者会表现出较高的武断选择倾向与较低的延迟选择倾向。第三,在促销折扣的调节下,促销品可选数量和折扣力度的交互作用,尽管对认知反应和武断选择的影响不显著,但是,对消费者情绪反应和延迟选择的影响均显著。第四,在过多促销品决策情境中,负性认知和负性情绪对延迟选择和武断选择倾向都有显著的正向影响,且负性认知的影响更强。

The primary purpose of sales promotion is to induce consumers to purchase rapidly,whereas the emergence of excessive and aggregated promotion in recent years has weakened its effectiveness. Although consumer numbness is regularly used to explain promotion failure,the theory called too much choice effect may shed new light on this issue from the perspective of similar promotional items in abundance.The literature review shows that,too much choice would cause consumers not only to abandon or defer choice,but also experience more negative emotions such as depression and regret in the decision-making process. Since abundant promotional products pertain to too much choice situation,it may trigger too much choice effect. In light of theories on too much choice effect and time pressure,the influence mechanism of abundant promotional products on consumers＇ psychology and behaviors,as well as the moderating role of time pressure in decision-making process was testified through psychological experiments. The internal relationship between abundant promotional products and promotional failure was also explored.The empirical results indicate that,firstly,too much choice effect does exist in the decision-making of abundant promotional products. Namely,consumers would experience stronger negative cognition and emotion,thus leading to deferred decision-making and promotion failure. Secondly,the path from the quantity of promotional products to consumers＇ negative cognitive and emotional reaction is clearly significant with the moderation of promotion duration. In addition to that,the effect of promotional products quantity on consumers＇ decision behavior is also moderated by promotion duration such that more promotional products and shorter promotion duration are more likely to enhance arbitrary choice and weaken choice deferral.Thirdly,except the cognitive reaction and the arbitrary choice,the interaction between the quantity of promotional products and discount has significantly different impact on customers＇ emotional experience and choice deferral under the moderation of discount. Fourthly,in the decision-making scenario of abundant promotional products,negative cognitive and emotional reactions both significantly exert positive effect on arbitrary choice and deferring choice,in which negative cognitive reaction dominates.Generally,this research is of great value to the promotion theory. Firstly,the too much effect in the decision-making process of promotional products in abundance was verified,and promotional failure was reasonably explained with the conception of choice deferral in the present study. Secondly,the cognitive and emotional mechanism of promotional failure was explicated with the concept of cognitive difficulties,perceived similarities,perceived anxiety,expected regrets,and undoing regret. Thirdly,the exploration about arbitrary choice also confirmed the internal relationship between consumer dissatisfaction and regret and impulse random purchase. Finally,longer duration and higher discount of sales promotion would result in defensive mechanism and choice deferral,while short duration and lower discount would induce arbitrary choice. The conclusions above not only reveal the important role of time limitation and discount in the design of sales promotion,but also confirms that time limitation is one of the crucial factors to induce impulse buying.In addition,this study also makes significant contributions to too much choice effect research. First,according to the premises of too much choice effect,the immediate choice was defined as arbitrary choice,thus illustrating why the choice would bring regret and brand transfer theoretically. Second,the too much effect in abundant promotion products,as well as the moderating role of time pressure was verified and found. Thus,enterprises can improve the promotion effectiveness of similar products in abundance by controlling the quantity of products,time limitation and discount. Furthermore,future research can combine the characteristics of consumer cognition and other products to reveal the moderating role of time pressure in more authentic promotional circumstance.