When Are Stockpiled Products Consumed Faster? A Convenience–Salience Framework of Postpurchase Consumption Incidence and Quantity

When people stockpile products, how do they decide when and how much they will consume? To answer this question, the authors develop a framework that shows how the salience and convenience of products influence postpurchase consumption incidence and quantity. Multiple research methods—including scanner data analysis, a field study, and two laboratory studies—show that stockpiling increases product salience and triggers consumption incidence among high-convenience products. However, when the decision is made to consume a product, stockpiling increases the consumption quantity for both high- and low-convenience products. In addition to providing new insights on how consumers make postpurchase consumption decisions, these results have implications for the debate on the value of promotions that induce stockpiling.