Öppet köp och konsumenters beslutsfattande

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ decision making for purchases in physical stores and the effect of a cooling-off period in this process. The theories and models that have been used are the expected utility theory, the regret theory, the prospect theory and the projection bias. By means of these theories the paper analyses if a cooling-off period has an effect ex ante or ex post on the purchase of a product and what it implies for the consumer’s decision making. With respect to the expected utility theory and the regret theory the threshold to purchase gets lower with a cooling-off period and thus, increases the willingness to pay for the individual. The prospect theory establishes that a cooling-off period creates a new reference point for money by the framing effect ex ante and by possession of the product the value of it will increase by the endowment effect ex post. These effects indicate that it is more likely the individual will buy and keep the product. Finally, projection bias presents a result in the opposite direction: a cooling-off period will rather ex post encourage the consumers to spend less money (they are more likely to return the product) with the opportunity to value the product without any influence of the store’s purchase stimuli.