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Out‐of‐stock, sold out, or unavailable? Framing a product outage in online retailing
Author(s) -
Peterson Robert A.,
Kim Yeolib,
Jeong Jaeseok
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
psychology and marketing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.035
H-Index - 116
eISSN - 1520-6793
pISSN - 0742-6046
DOI - 10.1002/mar.21309
Subject(s) - ceteris paribus , framing (construction) , stock (firearms) , advertising , attribution , perception , framing effect , marketing , business , scarcity , psychology , economics , social psychology , microeconomics , engineering , mechanical engineering , structural engineering , neuroscience , persuasion
Terms, such as “out‐of‐stock,” “sold out,” and “unavailable” are commonly used by retailers to communicate a product or brand outage. Although these terms are technically equivalent, prior research on product outage and product scarcity suggest that they may be interpreted and processed differently by consumers. The present research investigated whether the manner in which a product outage was framed elicited different consumer behavioral intentions, attributions, and perceptions in the context of online retailing. Data were collected by means of an online experiment. The experiment incorporated a hypothetical scenario approach in which research participants were asked to react to a particular combination of treatment and blocking factors. Results demonstrated that ceteris paribus, framing a product or brand outage as “sold out” produces fewer negative product and website reactions than does framing it as “out‐of‐stock” or “unavailable.”