In daily life, consumers often shop in busy malls, commute during rush hours, and dine in crowded restaurants. As a pervasive aspect of urban life, crowded environments influence consumer behaviors, including calorie intake, purchase intentions toward products displayed in more crowded spaces, and a preference for safety-related products. However, less studied is how the experience and perception of crowdedness may alter consumers’ responsiveness to sales promotions? Sales promotions are widely used in marketing practice, and the term refers to using monetary or nonmonetary incentives with the purpose of influencing consumers’ purchase behaviors.
This paper provides the first empirical evidence that crowding reduces the effectiveness of sales promotions in the marketplace. Specifically, in a crowded environment, consumers’ purchase intentions change to a smaller extent in response to sales promotions. This occurs because consumers tend to shift their focus from the external environment to their internal feelings and thoughts when experiencing crowdedness. Consequently, they rely more on their internal states than on external cues in making judgments, making their purchase intentions less influenced by sales promotion information.
Thus, when conducting marketing activities in high-density locations, marketers may need to implement more intensive promotions (e.g., larger discounts) to counteract the effects of crowding and effectively influence consumer purchase intentions. At the same time, although crowding reduces consumers’ responsiveness to sales promotions, it also mitigates the negative impact of unfavorable marketing information change (e.g., when a sales promotion has just ended), helping companies reduce post-promotion sales losses. Marketers can leverage these findings to optimize sales promotions across different shopping environments.