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Two main types of value have been established in the retail literature: merchandise value based on the quality and price of a store's offerings and differentiation value based on the extent of atmospheric cues in the environment. However, it is not clear what happens when a store offers both types of value to a high degree. We investigate how offering a bargain (or price cut) affects consumer responses for high and low differentiation store environments. In two studies, using a simulated store environment in a behavioural laboratory, we find that the presence of bargains in a highly differentiated store environment negatively influences store affect and, in turn, approach behaviour. This effect, however, only holds true for low familiarity stores and can be explained by processing fluency theory. Consequently, retailers focusing on store environment differentiation should reconsider their use of bargains.

Retailers use atmospheric cues to trigger emotional reactions that enhance consumer behavior. However, introducing cues into a store environment may also trigger sensory overload, due to too much stimulation. This study aims to examine the effects of adding high arousal atmospheric cues in a store environment on affective reactions, approach behavior, and evaluations by making use of different methods (i.e., two lab experiments and one field experiment), by adding various types of atmospheric cues (i.e., cues processed in higher senses versus processed in lower senses), and by differentiating the order in which they are added. Results reveal that when a third high arousal cue is added sensory overload (i.e., rise in perceived arousal and decrease in perceived pleasantness) occurs under the condition that this third cue is processed by a higher sense (i.e. visual or auditory sense). Furthermore, a decrease in approach behavior and evaluations is also observed when these conditions are met. Mediation analyses indicate that this effect on evaluations is mediated by pleasure and approach behavior. The research presented extends previous findings by investigating possible predictors (i.e., number of cues as well as type of cues) of the momentum where sensory overload may take place.