The effects of regulatory focus, processing disfluency, and shopping goals on consumer perceptions of range-of-savings claims in retailers’ mobile ads

Abstract

This research investigates three factors influencing consumer perceptions of range-of-savings claims in mobile ads. Since such claims are inherently ambiguous, consumers perceive uncertainty and make judgments about the discount through an anchor-adjustment process. We expect that consumers' regulatory focus will differentially affect these psychological responses. However, when savings claims are presented in a disfluent manner, this effect will vary depending on whether the consumer has a shopping goal. Specifically, consumers with a shopping goal engage in more deliberate and systematic processing, leading them to modify their initial responses. In contrast, consumers without a shopping goal are likely to rely on automatic and heuristic processing, reinforcing the influence of naïve theories about disfluency. To test the hypotheses, we conducted an experiment with three hundred seventy-two South Korean adults using a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects design. The results showed that when a shopping goal was present, promotion-focused participants perceived the discount as less credible, judged the product's value lower, and showed weaker purchase intentions when the savings claim was disfluent (vs. fluent). In contrast, prevention-focused participants' perceptions of credibility, product value, and purchase intentions were higher in the disfluent conditions. When no shopping goal was present, participants responded more positively to disfluent savings claims, regardless of their regulatory focus. This study extends our understanding of tensile price claims and regulatory focus, provides new insights into the mechanisms of processing fluency, and offers guidelines for designing effective pricing strategies and online ads, including customization. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd