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Top1. Introduction
Customers are sensitive to the driving force of the product's price when deciding where to buy a product (Büyükdağ, Soysal and Ki̇tapc, 2020). Retailers frequently conduct freebie and price discount promotions to attract consumers and increase revenue in the short term (Liu and Chou, 2020). Sales promotions are recognised for their effectiveness in increasing sales volume within a short time period (Santini, Ladeira, Sampaio and Boeira, 2020). Businesses use different promotional formats to stimulate online consumer purchase intentions; these formats include bonus packs, price discounts, buy-one-get-one-free, and freebies. The most common promotional formats are bonus packs and price discounts (Chen, Marmorstein, Tsiros and Rao, 2012). Campbell and Diamond (1990) divided promotions into two categories: monetary and non-monetary. While both provide the same value to the consumer, they may differ with regard to purchase decisions (Chandon, Wansink and Laurent, 2000).
Different consumer value perceptions influence different promotional formats. Thus, consumer value perceptions are characterised by either their hedonic or utilitarian values. The hedonic consumer values the entertainment and emotional experience of consuming, whereas the utilitarian consumer is rational, task-oriented, functional, and cognitive during online shopping (Babin, Darden and Griffin, 1994). The use of price discounts and bonus packs is widespread in marketing. Promotional formats that reflect individual product types could motivate online consumer purchase decision-making.
Retail promotion strategies have become an increasingly prominent topic of research (Dunković and Antonia, 2017). Liu and Chou (2020) discussed the effect of item complementarity in freebie promotions on value discounting; Büyükdağ, Soysal and Ki̇tapc (2020) discussed the effect of discount pattern in terms of price promotions on perceived price attractiveness and purchase intention, Ding and Zhang (2020) showed the effect of gift vouchers versus direct gifts in conditional promotions
Today, technology and ease of living have made online shopping the primary channel of purchase, which, in turn, has rapidly developed numerous e-commerce platforms. Institute for Information Industry (2018) reported that 64.9% of Taiwanese netizens shop online using smartphones or tablets. Thus, businesses must understand what kind of promotional formats, consumer value perceptions, product types, and brand familiarity can emerge from highly competitive environments. This is a major issue for enterprises.
Which promotional format would consumers prefer, given high and low brand familiarity? Keller (1993) found that there is a positive correlation between brand familiarity and consumer purchase intention; that is, consumers are more interested in high brand familiarity. Moreover, Lee and Yi (2019) showed that brand familiarity (familiar and unfamiliar) regulates the promotion framework. In other words, framing the same information in different ways may have a significant impact on customers' perceived savings, perceptions of product quality, and purchase intentions (Zhao, Sun and Xiao, 2016).
This study extends prior research on promotional formats by using an experimental design. In this study, we explore the impact of consumer value perceptions, product types, and brand familiarity on purchase decisions by manipulating promotional formats such as bonus packs and price discounts. This study thus ascertains what kind of promotional formats stimulate online consumer purchase intention. Our work could be useful for businesses to develop sound promotional strategies to stimulate consumer purchase intention.
The purpose of this study is as follows: (1) Exploring whether promotional formats affect online consumer purchase intention. (2) Exploring whether consumer value perceptions interfere with promotional formats and online consumer purchase intention. (3) Exploring whether product types interfere with promotional formats and online consumer purchase intention. (4) Exploring whether brand familiarity interferes with promotional formats and online consumer purchase intention.