Research Of Consumers' Perception Of Price Fairness For Price Increase

This paper studied the perception of price fairness under the context of price rising. We conduct three experiments to examine the fairness perception in different aspects. We suppose "price stimulus—perception of fairness —negative emotion—willingness to purchase" was a chain reaction .In study 1, we investigated perception of price fairness for price increase caused by inflation. In study 2, we investigated perception of price fairness under the context of different attribution and different goods. In study 3,we further focused on the important influence of trust with the division of goods and service. Every stusy had some interesting findings and some problems valuable for future researches.Scenario - simulated method was applied in Study 1 and a 2 ×2 ×2 three factors between subjects design was adopted.The researcher collected 778 samples to examine the price increase caused directly by the inflation,and tested the main affects of the locus of causality,the level of price increase and the reference system on perception of price fairness and negative emotion of consumers. We find empirical evidence to conclude that: All price increases caused by inflation were considered as unfair; The locus of causality and the level of price increase significantly affected the perception of price fairness and negative emotiont, and the reference system significantly affected the perception of price fairness ;The interactive effects between the locus of causality, the level of price increase and the reference system were significant; Egalitarianism directly affected negative emotion; When the future prices were anticipated, cognitive deviation appeared.Scenario-simulated method was applied in Study 2 and a 2 ×5 two factors between subjects design was adopted.The researcher collected 712 samples to examine the price increase , and tested the main affect of different causalities and product categories on perception of price fairness , negative emotion , firm evaluation and willingness of purchuse.We find empirical evidence to conclude that: The consumers reacted mildly to the price increase without reason and they considered the price increase caused by external and uncontrollable reasons to be relative fairest ;The interactive effect of locus of cause and controllability was significantly on the perception of price fairness ,firm evaluation and willingness to purchase ; Product categories hadmain effecty on the perception of price fairness and the willingness to purchase,subjects were more willing to buy electricity than wash machine under the similar condition ; Egalitarianism positively affected negative emotion and firm evaluation; The negative emotion and firm evaluation were two mediators between perception of price fairness and willingness to purchase.Scenario-simulated method was also applyed in Study 3 and a 2X2 two factors between subjects design was adopted.The researcher collected 517 samples to examine the moderator effect of trust between negtive emotion and willingness to purchuse, and the tested the difference of perception of price fairness between goods and service. We find empirical evidence to conclude that: Consumers' trust was a moderator which affected the relationship between negative emotion and willingness to purchase; The perception of fairness differentiated between goods and service, and comsumer somewhat underestimated the value of service; The perception of fairness significantly affected negative emotion, firm evaluation and willingness to purchase, while negative emotion and evaluation were mediators between perception of fairness and willingness to purchase; Egalitarianism directly affected negative emotion and evaluation.Finally, the paper systematically concluded the main findings and discussed the essential theory progress, application and future research directions.