Clearance Sales of Fashion Apparel: Buying Decision and Customer Value Paradigms

Abstract

Consumer responses to clearance sales, both in terms of consumer satisfaction with the decision process and in terms of subsequent store choice behavior, are explored in the paper through controlled experiments conducted involving clearance sales in a consumer choice and decision satisfaction context. The results suggest that consumer response to clearance sales is driven to a large extent by two factors: the effect of a clearance sale on the available options of goods and the degree of store loyalty. Response to a clearance sale was found to be a function of two primary forces - the degree to which a consumer was personally committed to the discount sales alternative, and changes in the difficulty of making a decision due to limitation of buying options.