Management Review

›› 2020, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (2): 184-196.

• Marketing • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Influence of Out-of-Stock of New Products on Consumers' Willingness to Pay Price Premium: Based on the Mediating Effect of Psychological Ownership and Relative Deprivation

Liu Jianxin1, Li Dongjin2, Li Yan3   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715;
    2. Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071;
    3. College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing 100070
  • Received:2017-05-15 Online:2020-02-29 Published:2020-03-07

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Abstract:

Nowadays, out-of-stock of new products happens occasionally, as a result of which, not only vendors suffer direct loss or miss potential sale opportunities, but also consumer's may become less satisfied or turn to alternative products. When their new products are out of stock, many vendors raise the selling price to gain a higher return. This behavior is widely controversial, but has been effectively explored in the academic world. The relevant observations and researches show that out-of-stock of new products has two effects on consumers:one is psychological ownership, which entices consumers to pay premium, and the other is relative deprivation, which disincline consumers from paying premium. Through two experiments, the study finds that (1) out-of-stock of new products will influence consumers' willingness to pay premium, and this is more true of supplied new products than demanded new products, (2) psychological ownership and relative deprivation jointly mediate the influence of out-of-stock of new products on consumers' willingness to pay premium, and (3)self-construal will moderate the joint mediating effect of psychological ownership and relative deprivation, and moreover it will have a matching effect on psychological ownership but not on relative deprivation. These conclusions' not only contribute to new product out-of-stock theory, psychological ownership theory and relative deprivation theory, but also have important implications for direct businesses to carry out new product marketing, for consumers to rationally tread out-of-stock new products and for regulatory bodies to keep out-of-stock marketing behaviors under a reasonable framework.

Key words: out-of-stock of new products, psychological ownership, relative deprivation, self-construal, consumers' willingness to pay price premium