A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Price Presentation on Perceived Savings

Pricing is one of the most crucial determinants of sales. Besides the actual price, how the price offering is presented to consumers also affects consumer evaluation of the product offering. Many studies focus on “price framing,” i.e., how the offer is communicated to the consumer is the offered price given along with a reference price, is the reference price plausible, is a price deal communicated in dollar or percentage terms. Other studies focus on “situational effects,” e.g., is the evaluation for a national brand or a private brand, is it within a discount store or a specialty store. In this article, a meta-analysis of 20 published articles in marketing examines the effects of price frames and situations on perceived savings. The results reveal many features that significantly influence perceived savings. For instance, while both the percent of deal and the amount of deal positively influence perceived deal savings, deal percent has more impact. Further, the presence of a regular price as an external reference price enhances the offer value of large plausible deal and implausible deals, but not of small plausible deals. Thus, high value deals should announce the regular price, but not low value deals. Overall, the results have several useful insights for designing promotions.