Understanding Consumer Reactions to Assortment Unavailability

might be different. The only exception to this trend is Boatwright and Nunes (2001), who show
that if an item delisting implies a brand delisting, the effect on category sales is more negative
than if not all the items of a brand are delisted. Although this finding emphasizes the possible
negative effect of brand delistings, their study does not provide an in-depth investigation of the
effect of brand delistings. Because brands differ in terms of brand equity, as a result of their
advertising and R&D investments, we question whether consumers react differently to a delisting
of a high-equity brand than they do to a delisting of a low-equity brand.
Second, previous literature provides some contrasting results. Several natural
experiments have shown that assortment reduction can lead to a growth in category sales (e.g.,
Boatwright and Nunes 2001; Drèze, Hoch, and Purk 1994). These findings contrast with findings
from the OOS literature, which demonstrate that most OOS situations lead to category sales
losses. Third, most studies in the assortment reduction literature stream are descriptive in nature
and do not test models that include several antecedents to explain the effect of a brand delisting.
This limitation causes a gap in retailers’ understanding of the factors that affect brand delisting
responses.
In the following sections, we present two studies on the effect of brand delistings in our
attempt to fill the preceding research gaps. Study 1 involves a controlled experiment in which
consumers’ primary brand is delisted. Study 2 employs an in-store survey in which consumers
are confronted with the hypothetical delisting of a brand they have just purchased.
3.3 Study 1
In Study 1, we specifically focus on measuring the effect of brand equity, assortment size, and
assortment structure on AE and SSI if the consumers’ primary brand, whether high or low
equity, is delisted. In a controlled experiment, we test whether consumers’ reactions to this brand
delisting depend on the assortment size (number of brands within the category) or assortment
structure (proportion of high-equity brands) presented to the respondent after the brand was
delisted. The inclusion of the dependent variable AE is based on prior research on the effect of
item delistings and category space on assortment perceptions (Broniarczyk, Hoyer, and
McAlister 1998). Our inclusion of the dependent variable “SSI with regard to purchase in the
product category” is based on the notion that delistings may affect category and store sales if
64