Consumer Information Integration at Pre-Purchase

During the pre-purchase stage, consumers look for information in the external environment to verify marketers' claims, and by doing so, they are likely to encounter some reliable independent information such as consumer reports or technical reports. Using a Discrete Choice Experiment, this chapter shows that consumers use marketers' claims as reference points and record the independent information they encounter as either gain or loss. Moreover, consistent with Prospect Theory, losses loom larger than gains. However, the valuations of losses/gains do not differ for brands with different strengths.