THE EFFECTS OF IMMEDIATE AND DELAYED PAYMENTS ON CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR

Authors

Arvind Agrawal, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Gentry, Jim

Second Advisor

Carlson, Les

Third Advisor

Eilert, Meike

Date of this Version

Summer 6-28-2018

Citation

Agrawal, Arvind (2018), "The Effects of Immediate and Delayed Payments on Consumption Behavior," Ph.D. diss., College of Business, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Comments

A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Major: Business (Marketing), Under the Supervision of Professor James W. Gentry. Lincoln, Nebraska: June, 2018

Copyright (c) 2018 ARVIND AGRAWAL

Abstract

Payment-timing is conceptualized as a payment instrument focal characteristic to explain differences in consumers’ purchasing behavior when they chose to pay-now versus pay-later. Payment-timing preferences represent consumers’ attitudes, beliefs, and motivation for delaying marketing transactions. Cash, debit cards, and online banking represented consumers’ preferences to pay-now, while credit cards and loans represented the inclination to pay-later.

There were two key findings: Firstly, I present payment-timing models that theorize consumers’ choice of payment types with differences in payment-timing and motivations to pay for purchases. Two models are presented that unify the following attitudes and motivations: (1) five attitudinal antecedents to consumers’ preferences for payment-timing: regulatory focus, heuristics, self-construal, perceived financial constraint, and extent of financial literacy; (2) five motivations that explain consumers’ likelihood of purchase using payment types with differences in payment-timing: the pain of payment, pain of mismatched payments, rewards salience, debt aversion, and decision construal; and (3) visualizing moral responsibility as a moderator to the pain of payment and economic motivation as a moderator to rewards availability.

Secondly, consumers had a greater likelihood of purchasing when paying later (with credit cards) versus paying now (with debit cards) in the context of high-dollar purchases ($1200 and above). Moreover, when paying later consumers preferred quality purchases versus buying multiple items for an equivalent amount.

Advisor: James W. Gentry