To Partition or Not to Partition: Role of Trade‐in Price on Consumer Evaluations of Purchases Involving Trade‐Ins
研究消费者在同时购买新品和以旧换新时，将交易分拆为两个价格（新品价和折价）还是合并为一个净价，哪种方式更受偏好，发现取决于折价高低，且消费者会参考新品价来评估折价。
Many new purchases involve consumers trading in their old product at the same time, requiring them to assume the dual role of a buyer and a seller in the overall exchange. This research examines how framing the overall exchange as a partitioned transaction with separate prices for the new purchase and the trade‐in, or a consolidated transaction with a single net price after accounting for the trade‐in price, affects consumer preferences. We find that consumers prefer a partitioned (consolidated) transaction when the relative trade‐in price is high (low). Unlike previous explanations based on heuristic processing and differential importance of the trade‐in price, our reasoning is that partitioning (vs. consolidating) prices makes salient and enables evaluability of the trade‐in price. In the absence of specific referents, consumers rely on the new purchase price to evaluate the merits of the trade‐in price. Consistent with our reasoning, we identify boundary conditions for the findings. The presence of a favorable referent for the trade‐in and whether the new purchase and the trade‐in are (perceived to be) in the same product category attenuate the reliance on the new purchase price as a referent. Our findings have important theoretical and managerial implications.