Shopping Goals, Goal Concreteness, and Conditional Promotions

We propose a two-stage model to describe the increasing concreteness of consumers’ goals during the shopping process, testing the model with a series of field experiments at a convenience store. Using a number of different process measures (experiment 1), we first established that consumers are less certain of their shopping goals and construe products in less concrete terms when they are in the first (vs. second) stage of the shopping process. The results of experiments 2 and 3 next demonstrate that goal-evoking marketing promotions (e.g., conditional coupons) are more effective in influencing consumers ’ spending when consumers’ goals are less concrete. Accumulating evidence points to the pivotal role of goals in our daily lives: they provide us with a sense of direction and clarity for our actions and influence the way that we think and behave (Gollwitzer 1990; Kruglanski et al. 2002; Kunda 1990; Locke and Latham 1990). It has been demonstrated that goals can serve as an effective self-regulation