The Color of Money - Towards the Influence of Payment Methods and Basket Price Judgments on the Overall Store Price Image

Prior research has investigated the effect of cash and card payments on consumer behavior, but the growing trend of payment with a mobile device hasn’t been considered in the literature so fare. This article represents one of the first studies that considers mobile as an alternative payment method and investigate how the ‘checkout’ phase affect the shoppers’ overall price image of retail stores (OSPI). Results from our studies show that the ‘checkout’ phase is the ‘moment of truth’ for shoppers judging OSPI. In particular, favorable comparisons of basket prices to shoppers’ mental budgets trigger lower store price perceptions. we investigate the effects of cash, card, and mobile payments and show that the less transparent a payment method, the lower OSPI judgments of shoppers. Subsequently, these results have major implications for retailers aiming to lower their OSPI in customers’ minds.