Consumers often base their decisions on impressions of the overall price level of a store. For example, decisions of where to shop, whether to buy an item or keep looking for a better price, and whether to buy a more or less expensive option can all be influenced by whether a consumer thinks a store is, in general, high-priced or low-priced. Although impressions of price level are important to both marketing researchers and practitioners, very little research has investigated how consumers form these retailer price images and how they impact subsequent consumer behavior. This the first essay in this dissertation seeks to address this gap in the literature by defining price image within a conceptual framework that identifies the factors most likely to influence price image formation and points the direction for future research by advancing a set of testable propositions regarding the antecedents and consequences of price image. The second essay investigates how a retailer's product line strategy can influence consumers' impressions of its overall price level. I examine the impact of one common retailer strategy--extending the product line with offerings from a higher or lower price tier--on price image as a function of consumers' buying and browsing goals. Conventional marketing strategy suggests that vertical extensions will have a directionally consistent impact on price image. I find that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, upscale extensions can actually lower a retailer's price image and downscale extensions can raise it. I attribute this outcome to differences in the way consumers with different goals process price information when forming impressions.

Last modified

• 09/10/2018

Creator

• Ryan Hamilton

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N22H9Q

Subject

• Marketing

Keyword

• Pricing
• Retail
• Buying
• Vertical Extensions
• Price image
• Browsing

Date created

• 2008-05-09

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright