Spending on the Fly: Mental Budgets, Promotions, and Spending Behavior

Recent research has suggested that consumers have in-store slack for grocery trips—that is, they leave room in their mental budgets to make unplanned purchases. Drawing on this work, this article examines how the impact of promotions depends on whether the shopper still has in-store slack remaining in his or her mental budget. Specifically, the authors evaluate how the effect of promotional savings for both planned and unplanned items on...