To buy or not to buy? Price salience in an online shopping field experiment

Arbeitspapier

We examine whether shrouding or partitioning of a surcharge raises demand in online shopping. In a field experiment with more than 34,000 consumers, we find that consumers in the online shop of a cinema initiate a purchase process for a 3D movie more often when the 3D surcharge is shrouded, but they also drop out more often when the overall price is shown at the check-out. In sum, the demand distribution is independent of the price presentation. This result qualifies previous findings on the effectiveness of shrouding surcharges and can be rationalized through low cancellation costs.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-3-86304-332-2
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: DICE Discussion Paper ; No. 333

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty ; Field Experiments
• Subject: Salience ; Inattention ; Shrouding ; Price partitioning ; Field experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus ; Köster, Mats ; Sutter, Matthias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)
• (where): Düsseldorf
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/215746
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET