Reference prices and quality signaling effects for consumer durables: An experimental approach

The role of price in a consumer\u27s decision to buy or not to buy a consumer durable is complex, to say the least. It is now accepted in the marketing literature that different price constructs, relating observed prices to internal value scales of consumers, are necessary complements of the observed market price. Not only are prices multidimensional concepts, they are not a priori known for long periods of time. In other words, where much of the micro-modelling effort in adoptions of durables has focussed on consumers\u27 evaluation of products with known prices, but uncertain performance, this work focuses on the complexity and uncertainty about prices