Abstract
Product overlapping display is widely used in high-imagery ads, shopping websites, and retail displays. However, little is known about whether and how product overlapping display influences consumers’ use of heuristics in their decisions. The research seeks to fill this gap by examining the link between product overlapping display and consumers’ tendency to use price to judge product quality. Four experiments designed to address this question revealed that an overlapping product display increases consumers’ tendency to make price–quality judgments, driven by their lower perceived uniqueness of products and higher perceived product entitativity. However, this effect is shown to be dismissed when the product is hedonic.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Kevin Lü for his feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.
Funding
This work was funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant (2022M722628) awarded to the first author.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Measurement
Measurement of price-quality judgment (Study 1a; Study 2 and Study 3)
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1
Generally speaking, the higher the price of a product, the higher the quality.
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2
The old saying “You get what you pay for” is generally true.
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3
The price of a product is a good indicator of its quality.
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4
You always have to pay a bit more for the best.
Measurement of perceived uniqueness of products (Study 2)
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1
These products are distinct from each other.
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2
These products are different from each other.
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3
These products are unique.
Measurement of product entitativity (Study 2)
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1
Each bottle of glass cleaner seems to be unified around the same goal.
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2
It’s easy to imagine bottles of glass cleaner working together toward one goal.
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3
Each bottle of glass cleaner clearly has the same goal as other bottles of glass cleaner.
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4
Each bottle of glass cleaner performs the same way as other bottles of glass cleaner.
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5
Each bottle of glass cleaner seems to have meaningful similarities with one another.
Appendix 2: Stimuli
Stimuli of Study 1a: USB Flash Disk
Stimuli of Study 1b: Alarm Clock—High Price × Non-overlapping
Stimuli of Study 1b: Alarm Clock—Low Price × Non-overlapping
Stimuli of Study 1b: Alarm Clock—High Price × Overlapping
Stimuli of Study 1b: Alarm Clock—Low Price × Overlapping
Stimuli of Study 2: Glass Cleaner
Stimuli of Study 3: Body Spray
Appendix 3: Post-study
Four hundred participants (female 60.17%, Mage = 38.55, SD = 10.28) recruited from Credamo were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: product display (overlapping vs. non-overlapping). All participants saw an advertisement for a pack of glass cleaners. Next, all participants were asked to write down their thoughts about products. Two independent research assistants who were blind to the studies’ design and hypotheses coded the participants’ written responses into three categories: uniqueness-related thoughts (e.g., “Each product shown in the picture has its own characteristics and is different from other products”), entitativity-related thoughts (e.g., “These products are mostly put together to solve the same problem”), and irrelevant thoughts (e.g., “I have not heard about this product”). It is important to note that a participant’s written response may encompass various expressions linked to uniqueness and entitativity, indicating the strength of their ideas relevant to these two variables (For example, one participant mentioned, “I think this set of products replicates several identical products, yet each item is autonomous from the other, hence each product possesses distinctive characteristics.” This statement comprises two unique descriptions of product evaluation, leading to the coding of strength as 2). Moreover, the coders were required to record the number of participants who generated relevant ideas and the number of relevant ideas per participant (see Figure C1 for the distribution of the number of perceptions). A kappa test showed that the consistency between the two coders for different ideas was 91.44%, indicating high consistency. For inconsistently coded thoughts, the two coders discussed with each other and reached a consensus.
The results showed that the proportion of participants who generated uniqueness-related thoughts in the overlapping condition group (26.00%) was significantly lower than that in the non-overlapping condition group (38.00%, χ2(1) = 6.66, p = 0.004, OR = 2.81). On the other hand, the proportion of participants who generated entitativity-related thoughts in the overlapping condition (41.00%) was significantly higher than that in the non-overlapping condition (30.00%, χ2(1) = 3.55, p = 0.006, OR = 2.25). Further analysis revealed that participants in the overlapping condition generated less uniqueness-related thoughts (Moverlapping = 0.33, SD = 0.24 vs. Mnon-overlapping = 0.61, SD = 0.29, F(1,398) = 4.55, p = 0.014) and more entitativity-related thoughts (Moverlapping = 0.54, SD = 0.28 vs. Mnon-overlapping = 0.36, SD = 0.15, F(1, 398) = 3.98, p = 0.031) than those in the non-overlapping condition.
Distribution of the number of thoughts
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Meng, L.M., Fu, T., Duan, S. et al. The overlapping effect: impact of product display on price–quality judgments. Mark Lett 35, 107–128 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-023-09684-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-023-09684-5