How should online stores implement coping strategies to fight against deceptive promotions?

Abstract

Abstract Deceptive promotions occur frequently, not only having negative impacts on the offending stores, but also affecting other online stores and the entire e-commerce platform. Existing research has not yet answered how online stores ought to respond. Through the scenario experimental method, this paper explores the effect of their coping strategies on consumer purchase intention, and investigates the moderating effect of store reputation and the mediating roles of psychological risk and promotion skepticism. The study found that after deceptive promotion occurs, the higher the reputation of a stores is, the higher consumers' purchasing intention will be. For such stores’ coping strategies, a segmentation strategy is best, a denial strategy is worse, and a silence strategy is least beneficial. Store reputation moderates the effect of coping strategies on purchase intention. For high-reputation online stores affected by another store’s deceptive promotion, in terms of the effect of online stores’ coping strategies on promoting purchase intention, a segmentation strategy and a denial strategy are superior to a silence strategy, and there is no difference between the segmentation and denial strategies. For low-reputation online stores in deceptive promotions, segmentation strategy is superior to a denial strategy and a silence strategy, and there is no difference between the denial and silence strategies. Psychological risk and promotion skepticism mediate the interaction effect of coping strategy and store reputation on purchase intention. The results of this study offer theoretical insights on customer responses in deceptive promotions and contribute managerial implications for practitioners.