Executive Summary
Although marketing researchers have studied the factors that determine which brand or product consumers choose, the field still knows little about the determinants of the quantity that consumers purchase. In this research, the authors examine the interaction between the consumer decision process and the purchase quantity decision. In particular, the authors focus on how the order in which consumers resolve decision trade-offs affects the amount and variety they choose. For example, a consumer might decide how many and which type of yogurt flavor to buy first and then decide which sizes of those flavors to choose. Alternatively, a consumer might decide to make the yogurt purchase in the opposite order, namely, the size decision before the flavor decision. The order in which consumers consider the different comparisons can happen because the retailer sets up the store display to encourage that one decision be made first or because the consumer naturally makes one decision first due to an internal decision rule. From a normative perspective, the decision order should not affect the amount and variety chosen. If the flavor decision is first, the size decision follows. In the other order, the same decisions are made, just in a different sequence. However, the authors find that the decision order exerts a systematic effect on the amount and variety chosen.
Seven studies test the proposed framework and predictions. The authors begin by focusing on trade-offs involving flavors (more difficult trade-off) and sizes (easier trade-off). Across the experiments, when the flavor decision precedes the size decision, consumers choose more overall and more variety than if the decision order is reversed. The framework is not limited to flavor and size decisions but also can account for other types of trade-offs that differ in terms of their decision difficulty, such as brand and size decisions or brand and flavor decisions. When a trade-off is less difficult, it reduces the effect of decision order on the amount chosen. The authors examine the implications of these findings for the way products should be organized on store shelves. Finally, they show that the effect of decision order on quantity chosen declines when consumers have alternative ways to resolve decision conflict, such as electing to defer the choice altogether.
Biography
Stephen M. Nowlis is AT&T Distinguished Research Professor of Marketing in the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. His research focuses on consumer decision making, choice, and consumption. He is the winner of the 2001 William F. O’Dell Award, was a finalist for the 2002 William F. O’Dell Award, and is the winner of the 2001 Early Career Contribution Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology. His work has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Marketing Letters, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Annual Review of Psychology. He is on the editorial review boards of Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Letters and is an associate editor at both Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Marketing Research.
Ravi Dhar is George Rogers Clark Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Customer Insights in the Yale School of Management at Yale University. He also has an affiliated appointment as Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. His research involves using psychological and economic principles to investigate fundamental aspects about how preferences are formed and constructed to understand and predict consumer behavior in the marketplace. He is also interested in the processes of self-regulation and, specifically, the simultaneous pursuit of multiple goals. He has been a visiting professor at HEC Graduate School of Management in Paris, at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, and at the business schools at Stanford and New York University. He has written more than 40 articles and serves on the editorial boards of leading marketing journals, such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Marketing Science.
Itamar Simonson is Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Itamar has published more than 50 articles in leading marketing and decision-making journals, primarily in the areas of buyer decision making, consumer choice, and marketing management. He has won many awards for his research, such as the Best Article published in Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research O’Dell Award (twice), the Best Article in Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, the Association for Consumer Research Ferber Award, and the American Marketing Association award for the Best Article on Services Marketing. At Stanford, Dr. Simonson has taught MBA courses on marketing management, marketing to businesses, and technology marketing and doctoral courses on buyer behavior, buyer research methods, and decision making. Itamar serves on eight editorial boards of leading marketing and decision-making journals. Itamar has consulted with companies on marketing, consumer behavior, and customer research issues in a wide range of industries.
Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 47, Number 4, August 2010
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