Consumer Price Perception and Reaction to Price Promotion in Online Shopping

Abstract

Aims: Many observations and studies have pointed out that due to the economic downturn and fierce competition in the online market, online retailers must think about how to use effective price promotion strategies to attract consumers' attention and further stimulate their purchase intention. At present, online retailers still use the price promotion strategies used by offline retailers in formulating price promotion strategies. However, the Internet provides consumers with the benefit of being able to quickly search for price information when shopping online, resulting in a substantial reduction in the cost of searching for price information for consumers. In this case, the influence of these price promotion strategies may be weakened or even ineffective; and the provision of this benefit may also affect consumers' cognition, attitude, and behavior toward online retailers' price promotions. Therefore, this study intends to explore consumers' perception, processing, and search behavior for online price information. Methodology: A review of the literature of price-related articles was selected for analysis, including the level of acceptance level, type and quantity of external and internal reference prices and advertising reference prices, to understand concurrently how retailers formulated their price communication strategies to influence the perception of consumer price online and offline. Conclusion: This research proposes the countermeasures for on-line retailers when formulating price communication strategies, and provides the academic community with an in-depth understanding of consumers' attitudes and behavior patterns towards on-line price information.