A Research on the Investigation of Consumers’ Thoughts and Behaviors against Unethical Pricing Practices Cover Image

Etik Dışı Fiyatlandırma Uygulamaları Karşısında Tüketicilerin Düşünce ve Davranışlarının İncelenmesine Yönelik Bir Araştırma
A Research on the Investigation of Consumers’ Thoughts and Behaviors against Unethical Pricing Practices

Author(s): Emre Yıldırım, Kazım MERT
Subject(s): Business Economy / Management, Behaviorism, Business Ethics, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: İşletme Araştırmaları Dergisi
Keywords: Ethics; Excessive pricing; Odd-ending pricing; Price differentiation; Consumer right;

Summary/Abstract: Purpose – The aim of this research is to reveal the opinions of consumers towards various pricing policies that performed by companies. Accordingly, unethical pricing practices which are shelf and cash register price mismatch, excessive pricing, discounted pricing, bait and switch pricing, oddending pricing and price differentiation were examined. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative and quantitative methods were used together in this research. In the qualitative context, 6 scenarios were generated to cover the relevant unethical pricing practices; the respondents' thoughts about these scenarios were tried to be obtained and coding method was used in the analysis of the obtained thoughts. In the quantitative context, a questionnaire was structured and used as a data collection tool. Additionally, some questions were utilized as well to measure the awareness of consumers about their rights in such cases. The questionnaire was performed in May 2019; 529 of 548 questionnaires were found to be suitable for analysis. Findings: According to the findings, it is seen that consumers find the pricing practices unethical, deceptive, and cause negative attitudes towards companies and decrease their loyalty. When consumers are exposed to unethical pricing practices they generally tend to react and complain, but mostly from a traditional way. At the point of complaining, consumer awareness about what legal channels are and how to use them is very low.

  • Issue Year: 11/2019
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 2876-2892
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Turkish