Consumer response towards personalised pricing strategies in online marketing

Abstract

E-tailers are now capable of customising prices for an individual buyer or a group of buyers who exhibit similar behavioural traits and perceived ability to pay. Tailoring prices based on personal information may evoke unanticipated reactions as it could infringe user's privacy and hurt fair price perceptions. To investigate the potential impact of positive and negative online personalised pricing situations, this study conducted a controlled experiment to observe the changes in consumer behaviour in a personalised pricing context. Seven hundred and twenty responses were collected from thriving online-active communities in India and Malaysia, both countries with high growth of e-commerce activities. Consumers' reaction towards fair price, customer loyalty, privacy concern, purchase satisfaction; and the influence of these constructs on post purchase behaviours such as repurchase intentions, revenge intentions and strategic purchase intentions were analysed using PLS SEM modelling. Results indicate online consumers in both countries have high privacy concerns, and as it increased, their repurchase intentions decreased correspondingly. Strategic purchase intentions and revenge intentions increased regardless of positive and negative purchase situations, while purchase satisfaction mediates fair price perceptions and repurchase intentions.