Economic and utilitarian benefits of monetary versus non-monetary in-store sales promotions

While prior research has examined the issue of sales promotion proneness, very little has examined proneness to non-monetary promotions, such as contests and premiums discovered in store. This study draws on a promotions benefits framework to examine the influence of shoppers' desired benefits on their relative proneness to in-store monetary and non-monetary promotions. Computer-aided telephone interviewing (CATI) data gathered from 500 grocery shoppers are used. The findings show that shoppers who are prone to using non-monetary in-store promotions seek exploration, entertainment and value expression benefits, in common with shoppers who are prone to monetary promotions. Both monetary and non-monetary promotion-prone shoppers feel financially constrained. In addition, non-monetary promotion-prone shoppers enjoy gambling and other hedonic outcomes. The managerial implications of our research findings are that many monetary sales promotion-prone shoppers may be attracted by the benefits provided by non-monetary promotions. The increased use by managers of non-monetary promotions instead of monetary promotions may result in improved category value and brand equity benefits.