Anchor-Based Promotions in Retailing: How Consumers Respond to an Additional Anchor?

Abstract

Research on anchor-based promotions suggests that retailers can increase promotional sales by presenting an irrelevant purchase quantity anchor in a price promotion. While several studies have examined such single-anchor promotions, the potential and limits of dual-anchor promotions remain unexplored. Therefore, this article examines how complementing a single-anchor promotion with an additional quantity anchor influences consumers’ purchase quantity decisions. The results of four studies demonstrate that the effect of an additional anchor on intended purchase quantity depends on the additional-by-original anchor interaction, so that complementing a small original anchor with a large additional anchor increases intended purchase quantity. The findings show that this positive effect is robust to the order of the two anchors and conditional on the additional anchor being a product quantity number. Process evidence indicates that the effect arises due to the increased mental accessibility of anchor-consistent information. The findings also suggest that while complementing a small original anchor with a large additional anchor increases intended purchase quantity substantially, using a single-anchor promotion based on a large anchor increases intended purchase quantity even more. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.

Keywords:

• Anchor-based promotion
• multiple unit price promotion
• anchoring
• behavioral pricing

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the HSE Foundation, grant number 2-337. The foundation had no other involvement than the financial support.