Author ORCID Identifier

Arvind Agrawal

James W. Gentry

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-5-2019

Publication Title

Journal of Consumer Affairs

Volume

54

Issue

2

First Page

607

Last Page

627

Abstract

Payment timing is conceptualized as a payment characteristic useful in explaining motivations to prefer payment types. Cash, debit cards, and online banking represent consumers' preferences to pay now, while credit cards and loans represent the inclination to pay later. Based on a grounded theory study, a payment‐timing model is developed to theorize consumers' choices of payment types with differences in payment timing. The model presents four motivations for payment‐timing preferences: (1) the extent of rewards salience, (2) the perception of financial stress, (3) adopting heuristics for money management, and (4) the influence of perceived financial ability. Consumers choose payment‐timing options that best suit their financial strategy to manage payments in pursuit of their consumption objectives.

Comments

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: A Agrawal, JW Gentry, "Why do many consumers prefer to pay now when they could pay later?", Journal of Consumer Affairs 54 (2), 607-627 (2019), which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12292. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.

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