Understanding Consumer Reactions to Assortment Unavailability

extent, comparable to the tendency of consumers to purchase the same type of brands (e.g.,
private labels) in different categories (Batra and Sinha 2000; Richardson, Jain, and Dick 1996).
Thus, when a high- (low-) equity brand is delisted and there are relatively few high- (low-)
equity brands in the remaining assortment, there will be fewer acceptable alternatives than when
there are relatively more high- (low-) equity brands.
H4: When consumers’ primary brand is delisted and the equity of the delisted brand is
congruent with the equity structure of the assortment, (a) AE will be higher and (b) SSI
will be lower than when they are not congruent.
3.4.5 Interaction effect: Assortment size × Assortment structure
Kahn and Lehmann (1991) show that consumers’ assortment preference is positively affected by
a combination of assortment size and assortment variety. This finding may be relevant for the
interaction effect between assortment size and assortment structure because an assortment with a
high proportion of high-equity brands may be perceived to offer more variety than an assortment
with a low proportion of high-equity brands. From a consumer’s perspective, a “complete”
assortment may be one that carries most of the available brands (assortment size) and in which
all the well-known (high-equity) brands are available. In this respect, we expect that an extensive
assortment that is missing several high-equity brands will be considered incomplete by
consumers compared with an extensive assortment that carries all high-equity brands but
excludes a few low-equity brands.
H5: When consumers’ primary brand is delisted, assortment size’s (a) positive effect on AE
and (b) negative effect on SSI will be greater for those assortments with a high
proportion of high-equity brands than for those with a low proportion of high-equity
brands.
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