THE INFLUENCE OF BRAND KNOWLEDGE AND PRICE TIERS ON PURCHASING BEHAVIOR

Purpose - The purpose of this research is to analyze how brand knowledge and price tier moderate relationships between cognitive (value and price level perception) and affective dimensions (emotion and symbolic value) of a retailer's price image and their impact on purchase intention.Design/methodology/approach - The study is based on a survey of 856 Brazilian university students in a major Brazilian city. Our basic theoretical framework includes five latent constructs and two moderators. Relations between these are analyzed using structural equation modeling with multi-group analyses and moderated mediation analyses using PROCESS. Originality -The results are important for the fortification of academic research on brand price image and they presents in an integrated way the relation between price tier and perceived value mediated by symbolic value and positive emotions and moderated by brand knowledge.Finding - The results show that for known brands, symbolic value, perceived value, and buying intention are stronger in high vs. low price tiers, while these effects do not exist for unknown brands. Further, a low price positioning reduces the symbolic value and perceived value for known brands, while it has no effect on the symbolic value and directly increases the perceived value of unknown brands.Practical implications - The results can help price managers to better direct their pricing strategies based on how brand knowledge and price tier impact the perception of and relationships between symbolic value, perceived value, emotions, and the consumer's buying intention.

Automated summary

The purpose of this research is to analyze how brand knowledge and price tier moderate relationships between cognitive and affective dimensions of a retailer's price image and their impact on purchase intention. The study is based on a survey of 856 Brazilian university students. The results show that for known brands, high price tiers strengthen symbolic value, perceived value, and buying intention, while low price positioning reduces symbolic value and perceived value for known brands.