묶음제품 가격 할인 제시 프레이밍 효과: 지각된 소비 혜택과 품질 불확실성의 영향을 중심으로

Discount Presentation Framing & Bundle Evaluation: The Effects of Consumption Benefit and Perceived Uncertainty of Quality

묶음제품의 매력도를 증가시키기 위해 소비자들이 번들 오퍼에서의 가격 제시 프레이밍(framing)에 민감하다는 것을 이해할 필요가 있다. 동일 가격을 할인하더라도 묶음제품 요소 중 어느 요소에 가격할인을 표시하느냐에 따라 소비자의 묶음제품에 대한 지각된 매력도를 바꿀 수 있기 때문이다. 선행연구는 더 중요한 제품 요소에 할인이 할당될 때 효용이 증가한다는 주장과 덜 중요한 제품 요소에 할인을 위치시키는 것이 선호를 증가시킨다는 주장을 동시에 보이고 있다. 본 연구는 선행연구를 보완하여 묶음제품 가격 할인 제시 프레이밍효과에 대한 새로운 기제를 제시한다. 그리고 선행연구에서 믹스드(mixed)된 결론을 보이는 이유를 분석하여 밝힌다. 본 연구는 현실적인 번들링 전략 사용 상황을 고려하였으며, 좀 더 리얼한 번들링 세팅을 이용하여 가격 할인 제시 프레이밍 효과를 조사하고, 순수번들 및 혼합번들을 포함한 다양한 묶음제품을 이용하여 품질 불확실성 지각에 따른 조절효과를 분석하였다. 본 연구 결과, 소비자들은 높은 소비 혜택(high consumption benefit)보다 낮은 소비 혜택(low consumption benefit) 요소에 가격 할인을 위치시키는 것을 더 선호하였다. 가격민감성(price sensitivity)이 주요혜택에서는 낮고, 낮은 혜택에서는 높기 때문에 동일 가격이 할인될 때 낮은 혜택을 할인한 매장 제품에 대한 평가가 더 높게 나타났다. 또한 구매 시점에서 품질의 불확실성(perceived uncertainty of product quality)이 높을수록 가격민감성이 혜택 지각에 가지는 효과가 더 커지고 있었다. 본 연구의 공헌은 소비 혜택 지각 및 가격민감성 기제와 지각된 품질 불확실성의 조절효과를 통해 선행연구를 통합하고, 가격 제시 형태의 프레이밍 효과를 명확하게 설명하였다는 점이다.

Constructing attractive bundle offers depends on more than an understanding of the distribution of consumer preferences. Consumers are also sensitive to the framing of price information in a bundle offer. In classical economic theory, consumers' utility should not change as long as the total price paid stays same. However, even when total prices are identical, consumers' preferences toward a bundle product could be different depending on the format of price presentation and the locus of price discount. A weighted additive model predicts that the impact of a price discount on the overall evaluation of the bundle will be greater when the discount is assigned to the more important product in the bundle(Yadav 1995). Meanwhile, a reference dependent model asserts that it is better to assign a price discount to a tie-in component that has a negative valuation at its current offer price than to a focal product that has a positive valuation at its current offer price(Janiszewski and Cunha 2004). This paper has expanded previous research regarding price discount presentation format, investigating the reasons for mixed results of prior research and presenting new mechanisms for price discount framing effect. Prior research has hypothesized that bundling is used to sell a tie-in component with an offer price above the consumer's reference price plus a focal product of the same offer price with reference price(e.g., Janiszewski and Cunha 2004). However, this study suggests that bundling strategy can be used for increasing product's attractiveness through the synergy between components even when offer prices of bundle components are the same with reference prices. In this context, this study employed various realistic bundle sets with same price between offer price and reference price in the experiment. Hamilton and Srivastava(2008) demonstrated that when evaluating different partitions of the same total price, consumers prefer partitions in which the price of the high-benefit component is higher. This study determined that their mechanism can be applied to price discount presentation formats. This study hypothesized that price discount framing effect depends not on the negative perception of tie-in component with offer price above reference price but rather on the consumers' perceived consumption benefit in bundle product. This research also hypothesized that preference for low-benefit discount mechanism is that perceived consumption benefit reduces price sensitivity. Furthermore, this study investigated how consumers' concern for quality in a price discount--a factor not considered in previous research--influences price discount framing. Yadav(1995)'s experiment used only one magazine bundle of relatively low quality uncertainty and could not show the influence of perceived uncertainty of quality. This study assumed that as perceived uncertainty of quality increases, the price sensitivity mechanism for assigning the discount to low-benefit will increase. Further, this research investigated the moderating effect of uncertainty of quality in price discount framing. The results of the experiment showed that when evaluating different partitions of the same total price and the same amount of discounts, the partition that discounts in the price of low benefit component is preferred to the partition that decreases the price of high benefit component. This implies that price discount framing effect depends on the perceived consumption benefit. The results also demonstrated that consumers are more price sensitive to low benefit component and less price sensitive to high benefit component. Furthermore, the results showed that the influence of price discount presentation format on the evaluation of bundle product varies with the perceived uncertainty of quality in high consumption benefit. As perceived uncertainty of quality gradually increases, the preference for discounts in the price of low consumption benefit decreases. Besides, the results demonstrate that as perceived uncertainty of quality gradually increases, the effect of price sensitivity in consumption benefit also increases. This paper integrated prior research by using a new mechanism of perceived consumption benefit and moderating effect of perceived quality uncertainty, thus providing a clearer explanation for price discount framing effect.