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Do credit cards impact consumers' impression of a product?

15/11/2011 - By Daniel Aitken

Can a credit card inform a customer's perception of a product?

Tag: Point-of-Sale Terminals

It's no secret that certain kinds of purchases warrant certain payment methods. For example, utility bills are most often paid by check, while routine transactions such as groceries are made with credit. But does the decision of cash versus credit impact consumers' perception of the product or service at hand?

Research has shown that consumers are willing to pay more with credit cards than cash, but a new report from researchers at the University of South Carolina and the University of Kansas found consumer perception of products is also affected when considering payment options.

"We find that people attend more to product benefits when concepts related to credit cards are highlighted in their minds as compared to cash concepts," the authors write, according to the University of Chicago Press Journals. "On the other hand, when cash concepts are primed, people tend to focus more on product costs (monetary and non-monetary)."

The report, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, also notes how consumers develop mental associations about credit cards versus cash from an early age, with cash being closely linked to the stress of paying money.

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