Consumer responses to mobile coupons: The roles of shopping motivation and regulatory fit

• Examines how mobile coupon redemption depends on type of product offer, congruency of offer with consumer’s temporal needs, and consumer’s shopping motivation.
• Utilitarian shoppers perceive greater regulatory fit when an offer is compatible with their shopping motivation.
• Hedonic shoppers perceive no difference in regulatory fit when an offer diverts them from their shopping motivation Hedonic shoppers redeem a wider variety of offers, whereas utilitarian shoppers require more personalization to redeem coupons.

Retailers increasingly use mobile coupon services to deliver promotional offers to consumers. This paper draws on the theory of regulatory focus to explain mobile coupon redemption. The paper proposes that redemption depends on the extent to which a mobile coupon requires consumers to divert from their focal shopping motivation. Regulatory fit, the perception of receiving an offer that is relevant to consumers' regulatory goals, mediates this divergence effect, but only for utilitarian shoppers. Results from two scenario experiments support the main hypothesis and show that utilitarian shoppers perceive greater regulatory fit when an offer is compatible with their focal shopping motivation. In contrast, hedonic shoppers perceive no difference in regulatory fit when an offer diverts them from their focal shopping motivation. This explains why hedonic shoppers redeem a wider variety of offers than utilitarian shoppers and why utilitarian shoppers require more personalization to generate coupon redemption.