THE MODERATING ROLE OF BRAND FAMILIARITY IN REFERENCE PRICE PERCEPTIONS

This article examines the moderating role of brand familiarity in the relationship between reference prices and transaction utility, shop-around saving, and shopping intention. An experiment was conducted in which levels of reference price and brand familiarity were manipulated in a MANOVA design. Results show that brand familiarity exerts a strong influence on consumer price perceptions. As hypothesized, subjects in the low familiarity condition perceived higher transaction utility, lower shop-around saving, and higher shopping intention when exposed to an implausible reference price than subjects in the high familiarity condition. Further, this study replicates recent findings on the effects of implausible reference prices.