Consumer avoidance of specially priced items during social coupon redemption

Social coupons (SCs) (e.g., Groupon) differ from traditional or regular coupons (RCs) in that they require consumers to make a prepayment to receive substantive discounts. As the general rule of SCs prohibits double-promotion, SC consumers tend to engage in certain avoidance behaviors when experiencing another promotion (i.e., specially priced for selected items). The results across two scenario-based experiments reveal that SC consumers (vs. RC consumers) have a greater tendency to avoid specially priced items when redeeming a coupon for hedonic consumptions, but not for utilitarian consumptions. Such avoidance is due to one's motivation to minimize the perception of deal waste.