In studies involving genuine transactions of potentially high value we show that willingness-to-pay can be increased when customers are instructed to use a credit card rather than cash. The effect may be large (up to 100%) and it appears unlikely that it arises due solely to liquidity constraints. In addition to demonstrating the effect, we provide a methodology for detecting it, and our findings suggest a source of variance to test alternative explanations.
Do Liquidity Constraints and Interest Rates Matter for Consumer Behavior? Evidence from Credit Card Data
Abstract. This paper utilizes a unique data set of credit card accounts to analyze how people respond to credit supply. Increases in credit limits generate
Do Payment Mechanisms Change the Way Consumers Perceive Products?
Abstract. Do payment mechanisms change the way consumers perceive products? We argue that consumers for whom credit cards (cash) have been primed focus mor
Purchase Justifiability Drives Payment Choice: Consumers Pay with Card to Remember and Cash to Forget
AbstractAlthough consumers often have multiple payment methods at their fingertips, such as cash and credit/debit cards, prior research is silent on how consumers choose between them. We home in on a key element of purchase—purchase justifiability—that affects how consumers choose to pay. Analysis of 118,042 real-world purchases and six experiments reveals that when consumers are motivated to forget (vs. remember) a purchase because they see it as difficult (vs. easy) to justify, they have an increased preference to pay with cash (vs. card) because cards create a “paper/electronic trail” that aids memory retrieval. These payment preferences are strongest among consumers most likely to recall/track their card spending, and manifest only when card expenses are trackable. We reconcile our results with the classic effect of payment method on pain of paying and discuss implications for merchants and for financial institutions designing payment methods of the future.
Cash versus Debit Card: The Role of Budget Control
Due to the financial crisis, an increasing number of households face financial problems. This may lead to an increasing need for monitoring spending and budgets. We demonstrate that both cash and the debit card are perceived as helpful in this respect. We show that, on average, consumers responsible for financial decision making within a household find cash and the debit card equally helpful for monitoring their household finances. Individuals differ in major respects, however. In particular, low earners and the liquidity‐constrained prefer cash as a budgeting tool. Finally, we present evidence that at an aggregated level, such preferences strongly affect consumer payment behavior. These findings suggest that the substitution of cash by cards may slow down because of the financial crisis.
Why Do Shoppers Use Cash? Evidence from Shopping Diary Data
Recent studies find that cash remains the dominant payment choice for small‐value transactions despite the prevalence of alternative payment methods such as debit and credit cards. An important policy question is whether consumers truly prefer using cash or merchants restrict card usage. Using unique shopping diary data, we estimate a payment choice model with individual heterogeneity, controlling for merchants' acceptance of cards. Based on a policy simulation imposing universal card acceptance among merchants, we find that overall cash usage would decrease by only 8.0 percentage points, implying that cash usage in small‐value transactions is driven mainly by consumer preferences.
Rewards and Misperceived Spending: Experimental Evidence from Credit Cards
Using proprietary data, a survey, and an experiment with a major bank in China, this paper studies how credit card rewards affect perceived and actual consumer
Consumer Rationality and Credit Cards
Borrowing on credit cards at high interest rates might appear irrational. However, even low transactions costs can make credit cards attractive relative to bank loans. Credit cards also provide liquidity services by allowing consumers to avoid some of the opportunity costs of holding money. The effect of alternative interest rates on the demand for card debits can explain why credit card interest rates only partially reflect changes in the cost of funds. Credit card interest rates that are inflexible relative to the cost of funds are not inconsistent with a competitive equilibrium that yields zero profits for the marginal entrant.
Time to Cut Up Those Debit Cards? Effect of Payment Mode on Willingness to Spend
Financial industry data indicate that consumers increasingly prefer debit cards over credit cards, especially as a means of enforcing financial self-discipline. Given prior research suggesting that credit cards act as spending facilitating stimuli, this move toward reduced credit card use would appear to be in the right direction. Ironically, however, the same logos that were implicated in facilitating spending with credit cards are the logos that appear on debit cards. In what should serve as an eye-opener to consumers, it is found that exposure to debit card logos does result in an increased willingness to spend, similar to credit cards.
A Mega-Replication of the Effect of Cash Versus Card Payment on Pain of Paying: Magnitude, Behavioral Outcomes, and Moderators
Abstract We revisit the widely accepted finding that paying with cash is more painful than paying with card by conducting the first systematic mega-replication (including 13 large-scale preregistered replications; a total of 32,371 participants, 65 products, and 57 price points ranging from $1.09 to $400). The aggregate evidence reveals four insights: (1) leveraging a broad set of established paradigms, we replicate the finding that paying with cash is more psychologically painful than paying with card, even among today’s consumers who own multiple cards, digital wallets, and virtual currencies; (2) comparing two outcome variables—amount spent and willingness-to-pay (WTP), we find a more reliable and larger overall direct effect of payment method on amount spent than on WTP; (3) these direct effects of payment method on outcome variables are mediated by pain of paying; (4) the mode-of-payment effect on pain of paying (and thereby on outcome variables) is moderated by individual differences, particularly the relative frequency of using cash versus card. We outline actionable guidance and future directions for researchers and practitioners interested in examining mode-of-payment effects, and discuss the value of and suitable approaches for future theory-driven large-scale replications.
Credit Cards as Spending Facilitating Stimuli: A Conditioning Interpretation
Abstract. Four experiments and one study were conducted to test the hypothesis that stimuli associated with spending can elicit spending responses. In all
The moderating role of income on consumers’ preferences and usage for online and offline payment methods
In this paper we examine consumer attitudes towards a payment method, which is a key factor affecting the probability of completing a transaction offline and online. More specifically, we constructed a model that surveyed the offline and online usage of prepaid e-cash, debit cards, credit cards and cash. User perceptions of the attractiveness of e-cash and various traditional payment means were also empirically assessed. Consumer attitudes towards a payment technology were found to be influential on users’ perceptions in both online and offline environments. User perceptions of offline purchases with a payment technology had significant and positive effects on the corresponding online usage perceptions. The effects of our research model are contingent on the income level of users. Our findings have significant implications, as they could help shed light on why consumers abandon their shopping carts and do not complete their transactions, which could potentially play a significant role when it comes to designing applications targeting sspecific consumer segments.
Leave Home without it? The Effects of Credit Card Debt and Available Credit on Spending
This research examines how credit card debt affects consumer spending. In five experimental and field studies, the authors demonstrate that outstanding credit card debt increases spending for consumers with high self-control. They also show that this effect can be eliminated by increasing the available credit on the credit card. Thus, when the available credit is low, consumers with greater self-control increase spending, but when the available credit is high, they reduce spending. The results extend the literature on goal violation and self-control and offer insights into consumer decision making and consumption patterns under conditions of debt.
Payment Rewards and Credit Card Debt: Experimental Evidence
We report on a controlled laboratory experiment in which participants make consumption, saving, and credit card repayment decisions when credit card purchases e
“Repayment-by-Purchase” Increases Consumer Debt Repayment
This article tests the effect of a novel credit card payment format—repayment-by-purchase—on consumers’ payments toward credit card debt. In contrast to typical balance repayment, where consumers make repayments relative to a total amount owed, repayment-by-purchase prompts consumers to select items (e.g., a Starbucks coffee) or categories of purchase (e.g., restaurant and café purchases) and to make payments toward their related debt. A field experiment first suggests that customers who opted into repayment-by-purchase paid 12.18% more toward their statement balance than a control group. Subsequently, five lab experiments show that consumers repaying-by-purchase increase repayment by an average of 22.47% over typical balance repayment. Process evidence suggests that these differences may be driven by repayment-by-purchase's power to increase purchase salience, which in turns increases perceptions of progress toward reducing debt. Consistent with this theory, the effect of repayment-by-purchase on bill repayment emerges regardless of whether consumers repay durable versus nondurable goods, and for specific items or categories of purchases, as long as the bill uses labels that are concrete enough to raise past purchase salience.
Differences in Consumer Purchase Behavior by Credit Card Payment System
Abstract. A conceptualization of the relationships between alternative payment systems and various environmental and behavioral variables, which may serve
How Do Consumers Avoid Penalty Fees? Evidence from Credit Cards
Using data from multiple card issuers, we show that the most common penalty fee type incurred by credit card holders, late payment fees, declines sharply over the first few months of card life. This phenomenon is wholly due to some consumers adopting automatic payments after a late payment event, thereby insuring themselves against future late payment fees. Nonadopters, who remain on manual-only payments, experience an unchanged high likelihood of future fees, despite exhibiting ample levels of available liquidity. Our results show that heterogeneity in adopting account management features of financial products, such as automatic payments, is important for understanding who avoids financial mistakes. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.
