This article examines whether price discrimination affects consumer price perceptions and emotions. Questionnaires involving various purchasing scenarios indicate that all kinds of price discrimination decrease the internal reference price of those who have to pay the original (higher) price. These effects of price discrimination on consumers¡¦ internal reference price are moderated by the discount depth. The deeper discount that the seller offers to the consumers, the larger the internal reference decreases. Further, when subjects were told that there is one consumer buy the product or service at the lower price (enjoying the price discount), they have negative emotion if they can have spend time looking for price-off coupons. But the other price discrimination such as VIP discount does not elicit consumers¡¦ negative emotion.

The feature of group buying is that the price will go down as the accumulated orders are increasing. However, consumers will not know the final price until the end. As a result, consumers can only make decision based on the final price forecast of group buying. The final price forecast might be different depending on different pricing strategies of group-buying models and if there are competitions from posted-price stores. The purpose of this research is to understand how consumers¡¦ internal reference price and final price prediction of group buying would be influenced when facing different price curves in different market competition environment. The difference between the internal reference price and final price prediction of group-buying indicates the consumers¡¦ transaction utility. In addition, if consumers¡¦ perceived transaction utilities affect their intentions and behavior of joining group buying is another research purpose. In this research, there are three different pricing strategies, decreasing, neutral, and increasing based on the initial price, discount size and final price. For the market competition environment, it manipulated by if there are other posted-price stores to be chosen or not. The research result indicates that increasing price curve, which has higher final price, make consumers¡¦ final price prediction of group buying higher than the others under the best condition. On the other hand, it indicates that decreasing price curve, which has higher initial price, make consumers¡¦ final price prediction of group buying higher than the others under the worst condition. Consumers¡¦ internal reference prices are mainly influenced by market price information. When there are other posted-price stores to be chosen, consumers¡¦ internal reference price are higher averagely. In addition, the higher consumers¡¦ perceived transaction utilities are, the higher consumers¡¦ intentions to join group buying are. Finally, it shows consumers¡¦ intentions to join group buying have significant effect on their actual behavior.

In recent years, as the economy in Taiwan grown strongly, the lifestyles changed into a modern pattern, which had placed the traditional society. In the new, fashion, and modern lifestyles, here comes a new type of consumption. In order to adapt the new environment, marketers have developed many kinds of marketing skills to promote the services or products they provide. Therefore, sales promotions have been significantly over the years. Sales promotions are short-term incentives to encourage customers to make a purchase. As consumers are exposed to the sales promotions, their perceptions of the sales promotions play an important role in leading consumers to make purchase decisions. In sum, the purpose of this research is to discuss the relation between sales promotions and the purchase likelihood; we also try to explain how the cognition from consumers impacts their purchase likelihood. Thus, the following are our purpose: 1. To evaluate whether the sales promotions from Watsons can affect the quality perception of consumers. 2. To understand the relation between the internal reference price and perceived transaction value. 3. To analyze the relation between perceived acquisition value and purchase likelihood 4. To explore how the purchase likelihood change when the anticipation of sales promotions fail. 5. Discuss the differences of cognition toward sales promotions in Watson within genders. In this research, I administered a questionnaire to explore the data from 223 participants. The findings are as followed: 1. The sales promotions from Watsons have significant impacts on quality perception of consumers. 2. Consumers¡¦ internal reference price has significant impacts on perceived transaction value. 3. Perceived acquisition value have significant impacts on purchase likelihood 4. The failure of anticipation toward the sales promotion will decrease consumers¡¦ purchase likelihood. 5. There¡¦s no difference of cognition toward sales promotions within genders.

本文主要探討「最低購買金額門檻」促銷，例如、「滿一千送一百」、「滿三千送三百」等對於消費者購物行為之影響。分為兩大研究主題：研究主題一旨在探討「最低購買金額門檻」促銷對購物決策與認知之影響，透過實地賣場購物實驗，瞭解該促銷能否提高購買金額、令消費者傾向去計算購買商品總價格，及帶來較高之知覺交易效用。 研究主題二則根據研究一中發現「最低購買金額門檻」促銷下消費者會傾向於心中計算總價格之結果，進一步探究該促銷是否會影響消費者對價格的認知，包括如價格記憶的正確性、及內部參考價格的影響，透過型錄購物及電腦網頁模擬購物之實驗來驗證。 根據上述兩大研究主題，本文中進行了三個實驗，皆同樣以提供10%折扣幅度，但未設定購買金額門檻的「九折優惠」促銷來做為控制組：研究一實驗在實際書店賣場舉行，以賣場門口發放三種促銷 (滿一千送一百、滿五百送五十、及九折優惠)折扣券方式，購物結束後再透過購物發票、賣場銷售資料及問卷衡量，瞭解消費者當日購物行為結果。 研究二則透過實驗室實驗法，以商品型錄模擬購物來瞭解消費者在「滿千送百」與「九折優惠」促銷下回憶商品價格正確性之差異；研究三實驗以電腦網頁模擬百貨公司購物，先讓受測者在兩種促銷 (滿三千送三百、九折優惠)情境下購買商品，觀察他們購物接近促銷金額門檻時，購買最後一件商品的選擇結果，之後再請受測者賣回所購買商品，並藉由訂價過程瞭解其內部參考價格水準。 本研究的主要發現，對於消費者購物行為影響方面：(1)「最低購買金額門檻」促銷確實能夠提高消費者購買的金額，符合定錨調整理論 (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974)推論之結果；(2)兩種促銷下的知覺交易效用結果則無法證實，推測由於實驗中「滿千送百」贈送的現金是緊接著消費決策後發生，延遲得到小額利得的感受不夠明顯，使得銀線原則 (Thaler, 1985)無法被驗證。 對於商品價格認知影響方面：(1) 當購買金額超過促銷門檻時，「最低購買金額門檻」促銷下的內部參考價格高於「直接折扣」促銷者；(2)在該促銷下消費者在心中計算總價格的比例明顯高於「直接折扣」促銷；(3)在該促銷下消費者因為必須計算總價格，使得價格回憶的正確性提高；(4)透過內部參考價格間接推估「最低購買金額門檻」促銷在購買金額超過促銷門檻時，有較高之交易效用。 / The present research explores the effects of “the minimum purchase requirement promotions” on consumers’ purchasing behavior. Study 1 examined consumers’ purchasing decisions in a field experiment with three types of promotional coupons randomly handed to customers: Purchase over $1000 and get a $100 cash reward, purchase over $500 and get a $50 cash reward, or 10% off price discount. Consumers’ invoices from the bookstore’s database were recorded, and questionnaires were used to measure transaction value and how these promotions influenced consumers’ shopping spending, and tendency to calculate total expense. Study 1’s findings show that consumers tend to calculate total expense under “the minimum purchase requirement promotion”. Study 2 and Study3 explored how this promotional type influences on consumers’ price cognition, including price recall accuracy and internal reference price. In Study 2, laboratory experiment was used: (a) purchase over $1000 and get a $100 cash reward and (b) 10% off price discount through manipulated catalog shopping. Study 3 was a computer-manipulated shopping experiment, with participants purchasing product in the shopping stage of experiment and selling the products in a later auction to ascertain their internal reference price under two different promotional frames (purchase over $3000 and get a $300 cash reward, and a 10% off price discount). Major findings about consumers’ purchasing decisions were: (a) as the inference of anchoring and adjusting heuristic theory (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974), consumers increase their spending; (b) the “requirement promotion” improvement of consumers’ transaction value cannot be proved as the inference of silver linings principle (Thaler, 1985) because the time delay was not obvious in the experiment. The results of the influence on price cognition were: (a) “the minimum purchase requirement promotion” had a higher internal reference price than regular price discount with total expense over the promotional threshold; (b) this promotion will increase consumers’ tendency to calculate total expense; (c) consumers have higher price recall accuracy in this requirement promotion; and (d) the internal reference price was used to infer that this promotion might have a higher transaction value with total expense over the promotional threshold.