Cash or Card: Consumer Perceptions of Payment Modes - Scholarly ...

students (n=37) were also asked to rate 20 sample unhealthy products in terms of whether
they would be likely to be bought on impulse or not. The results showed that the students
thought that most of the unhealthy products would be the subject of an impulsive purchase.
Though these students were not represented in the panel data - so there is no way of knowing
if the owners of the receipts used in the panel data would concur with either the unhealthy or
impulsive labels.
Study Two: This study tests the relationship between impulsive / non-impulsive
purchase behaviour. Using this classification system a set of participants (not those who had
linked products to impulsive/non-impulsive behaviour) were directed to one of two purchase
situations. Both situations displayed the same choice of 10 healthy products and 10
unhealthy products. The only variation was that in one task they were primed to pay with a
credit card and in the other only permitted to use cash. Results showed that in terms of
healthy products classified as non-impulsive purchases no difference was noted across credit
and cash payments. However for impulsive-unhealthy purchases, a difference (but not
significant) was noted $11 by cash and $16 by credit card.
Study three: examined the degree to which the payment mode affected the attention
given to the price of the transaction. Two sets of participants were asked to purchase from a
set list of items using either cash or credit card. After the task they were asked how many
items they bought and how much they paid for them. No difference was noted across the
payment modes - so authors concluded that the pain experienced was not due to the cost of
the transaction. However they did note that people showed more regret at the purchase when
they purchased unhealthy goods and in the study participants did spend more on unhealthy
products when they used a credit card – so the combination of the credit card and the
unhealthy purchases combined to create a sense of regret. The authors also note that the cash
users reported a higher sense of pain.
Study Four: This study examined how tightwads-spendthrifts perform when using
cash and credit card. Participants completed the Rick, Cryder and Lowenstein (2008)
Spendthrift-Tightwads scale and were asked to complete a shopping task. Results show that
tightwads are more likely to spend more on unhealthy products using credit than when using
cash whereas no difference was noted across the spendthrifts.
The findings of the payment mode research seem to be fairly consistent in that the use of such
cards in the context of routine (household) shopping transactions is associated with an increase
in spending and number of items purchased. Apart from some evidence that card based modes
result in an increase in non-essentials and unhealthy food items other purchase patterns are not
identified. This may be a function of context and research designs adopted. Most are laboratory
based quasi-experiments based on convenience samples, where participants are presented with
a set task and usually set items to choose from. Apart from Thomas et al. (2011) use of the
spendthrift/tightwad and the Hunt, Florsheim, Chatterjee, and Kernan (1990) link to
materialism, participant characteristics are not considered. Though laboratory based quasi-
experiments can yield valuable results; their limitations are well known and discussed, as are
the guidelines that should be adhered to in order to increase validity. The credit and debit card
studies have reliability issues stemming from sampling selection, absence of controls, cause
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