가격과 품질의 손실회피 비대칭성이 가격순서효과에 미치는 영향

Abstract

The price order effect refers to the phenomenon that consumers tend to select a higher-price, higher-quality option when choice alternatives are presented in descending price order (i.e., highest to lowest) than in ascending price order (i.e., lowest to highest). The price order effect provides practical implications because consumers frequently make choices among options that are ordered according to price. Major online stores present items in an ordered format and provide a tool for sorting the items in an ascending or a descending order of price. Ordered price-based presentations are also frequently used offline. For instance, price-based ordering is one of the most common presentation formats for restaurant menus. Reference-dependent loss aversion has been proposed as theory that explains the price order effect. Consumer preferences are reference dependent in that the utility of an alternative can be affected by the standard against which it is evaluated. Thus, what becomes the reference is an important determinant of consumer choice. The information consumers are exposed to earlier is often used as reference standard for evaluating the information that appears later in the sequence. When prices are presented sequentially, people evaluate the current price of a product against its past prices or against the prices of other brands they have previously encountered. In simultaneous format presentations, the options that appear early in the list serve as reference points for the evaluation of the options that appear later. The earlier items also serve as a reference quality, as evidenced by the fact that prices are positively correlated with perceived quality. The reference quality to be higher with a descending than with an ascending price order. For the first-presented option, reference-dependent perception of gain- loss is less likely. Because the impact of loss is greater than the impact of gain in terms of its contribution to overall reference-dependent utility, options presented later in the sequence should have a lower reference-dependent utility, regardless of whether the order is ascending or descending. As a result, the average price of the final choice should be higher with a descending than with an ascending price order. This research extends the theory by proposing that the effect is also accounted for by the asymmetric loss aversion of price and quality. In general, loss aversion is greater for quality than for price. Consumers are reluctant to sacrifice quality in exchange for a lower price, because quality represents the purpose of the purchase, whereas price is perceived as a means for obtaining the quality. Therefore, the impact of loss aversion is greater for quality(i.e., descending price order) than price (i.e., ascending price order), resulting in a greater impact of loss when options are aligned by price in descending than in ascending order. Two empirical studies tested (1) asymmetry of quality and price losses that is a key assumption of the proposed extended theory and (2) the influence of price presentation order on the formation of consideration sets. Study 1 tested the asymmetric loss aversion for quality and price using a multinomial logit model. The data used for the analysis were consumer choice of an option given the list of items presented in either ascending or descending order. Participants were also presented with quality information of options. Depending on the condition, quality scores were either positively correlated with prices or not correlated with prices. The model estimated price gain, price loss, quality gain, and quality loss coefficients, in addition to brand preference dummies. The results of Study 1 present evidence supporting that the impact of loss aversion on choice is greater for quality than price. Study 2 tests the effects of the asymmetry in loss aversion on the formation of the consideration set. The formation of the consideration set has no restriction on the number of options selected, thus allowing for testing the asymmetric loss aversion hypothesis by examining the size and composition of the consideration set. Because the impact of loss is greater for quality than for price, the perceived loss of the options presented later compared to those presented earlier should be greater with a descending price order than with an ascending order. Thus, it is predicted that the size of consideration set will be smaller and the price range of the items in the set will be narrower when the price order is descending than ascending. It is also predicted that the average price of the options included in the consideration set will be higher with the descending order, as we found for the choice task. The results show that the brands included in the consideration set are higher in price, smaller in number, and narrower in the price range in descending price order than in ascending price order. These findings are explained by the proposed extended theory that incorporates asymmetrical influences of quality and price loss aversion.