Price frames effect on consumer decision making

The way prices are presented (so-called price frames), as well as their levels, can affect competition and consumer welfare.  This is because consumers take various ‘short-cuts’ when choosing between products and services.  Price frames are used to inform those ‘short-cuts’.

In the third of our latest set of Insights: Price frames effect on consumer decision making we describe how assessing: (i) the prevalence of potentially misleading offers; and importantly (ii) their impact on consumer decision making can be important in relation to markets involving fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) using transaction data.  We used a recent super-complaint by Which? to the CMA to motivate our approach.  This Insight summarises our analysis.