About

Rajesh Bagchi is the Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Programs, and Centers at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, where he holds the title of R.B. Pamplin Professor of Marketing. His role involves overseeing research initiatives, graduate programs, and centers within the college. The page does not provide specific details about his research focus, background, or key contributions.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Marketing
• Economics
• Econometrics
• Psychology
• Advertising
• Microeconomics
• Natural resource economics
• Cognitive psychology

Selected publications

• Multiple Unit Offers and Rate Calculations: How Rates Influence Price and Promotion Sensitivity

  Journal of Marketing · 2025-08-25

  articleSenior author

  Consumers are often faced with multiple unit offers (e.g., $40 for 5 lb of coffee) in the marketplace and must figure out how to evaluate them. Although the total price (e.g., $40) is always provided, the associated rate information is not (e.g., $8/lb of coffee). The focus of this research is on understanding the role that these rates play in influencing consumer decision-making. The authors find that regardless of whether rates are provided by managers or calculated by consumers, consumers are more sensitive to promotional offers with dollar per unit (vs. unit per dollar) rates, because dollar per unit rates increase price salience. Additionally, the authors document how, when rate information is not provided, these rates are computed by consumers. The authors find that consumers prefer to use the larger numerosity element as their rate's numerator, which leads to calculating units per dollar rates when the multiple unit offer's quantity is larger in numerosity than the price, but dollars per unit rates when price is larger in numerosity than the quantity. The authors discuss theoretical, practical, and policy implications.

  PublisherDOI

• The Organized Ask: How Categorizing Data Requests Affects Consumers’ Willingness to Disclose Information

  Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · 2025-01-29

  articleSenior author

  Firms often ask customers to divulge personal information. Two common strategies to encourage disclosure—emphasizing consumer benefits and highlighting data security measures—rely on communications that may backfire. This research examines an alternative strategy to increase disclosure—restructuring how data requests are presented. Drawing on categorization theory, we argue that grouping data requests into distinct categories (vs. presenting them as an uncategorized list) can make firms seem more professional, thereby increasing consumers’ perceptions of data security and willingness to disclose. This effect emerges even with uninformative categories but not when all the requests are placed into a single category. Our findings identify categorization as a simple tool that firms can deploy to increase voluntary disclosure of personal information. However, our work also raises ethical questions about data elicitation methods and how to better protect consumer privacy.

  PublisherDOI

• The Token-Effort Effect: Trivial Redemption Effort Increases Price Promotion Effectiveness

  Journal of Marketing Research · 2025-06-25 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  This research documents how introducing redemption tasks requiring a token (i.e., trivial) amount of effort—for instance, by asking the consumer to enter a promo code or solve a CAPTCHA to receive a discount—increases price promotion effectiveness compared with equivalent straight discounts (i.e., applied automatically). Eight studies (including two field experiments) and three additional Web Appendix studies provide robust evidence for the beneficial effect of token-effort requirements on redemption rates. This effect occurs because the easy-to-attain redemption task induces a high perceived return on effort. Thus, this effect only occurs when the redemption task requires token-type effort but not when it is effortful. This research offers costless and easy-to-implement managerial recommendations for boosting the promotional effectiveness of price promotions.

  PublisherDOI

• Price Partitioning of Socio-Moral Surcharges

  Journal of Consumer Research · 2024 · 9 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Natural resource economics

  Abstract Many companies are levying mandatory surcharges on products to raise funds for socio-moral causes (e.g., carbon-offset, living-wage, fair-trade, and sustainability surcharges). Should these surcharges be presented separately from the product price (i.e., partitioned pricing) or combined with the product price (i.e., all-inclusive pricing)? This research argues that partitioned pricing for socio-moral surcharges can backfire. When socio-moral surcharges are partitioned, consumers feel that the company is avoiding its own responsibility toward the cause, reducing intrinsic corporate social responsibility attributions and consequently leading to adverse consumer reactions. This theorization is specific to surcharges attached to socio-moral causes; the effects reverse for non-socio-moral surcharges. Further, we document three ways via which firms can alter consumer beliefs and attenuate negative reactions. These include approaches that signal that the firm is not seeking reputational benefits, that the firm is not avoiding responsibility, and by shifting consumers’ focus from the costs they have to bear to the benefits they accrue. Hence, this research presents implications for managers and policymakers seeking to incorporate socio-moral surcharges into product prices while mitigating consumer backlash.

  PublisherDOI

• <scp>JCP</scp>: The next mile

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  We are honored to serve as Editors of the Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP), accepting the baton from Lauren Block, Jennifer Argo, and Tom Kramer and continuing down the path of excellence that they and their predecessors have forged for the journal. Prior editors sought to define the journal's scope (e.g., Block et al., 2020; Wyer & Shavitt, 2002), improve its operational efficiency (e.g., Maheswaran, 2006; Wyer & Shavitt, 2003), and introduce impact initiatives (e.g., Maheswaran, 2006), including alternative formats that support diverse research contributions (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2018). Their efforts, as well as those of prior editors, associate editors, reviewers, and authors, have helped make JCP the journal that it is today – a premier outlet for research that advances knowledge of consumer psychology. In our initial editorial, we share our thoughts about where the journal is now and the direction we plan to follow, acknowledging the need for us to address other important issues in future editorials. Because this initial editorial builds on the ideas and efforts of the incredible scholars who preceded us as editors, or describes distinctive features of the journal that we plan to continue, we borrow words and phrases from past editorials or the journal website, believing there are limited ways to describe similar perspectives and practices. We embrace the notion articulated most recently by our immediate predecessors that consumer psychology involves an understanding of the science underlying consumer behavior (Block et al., 2020). It encapsulates understanding consumers' thoughts, feelings, or behaviors as they interact with products, services, or ideas in the marketplace and beyond (Hoyer & MacInnis, 2007; Peter & Olson, 2017; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000). We share previous editors' inclusive perspective of consumer psychology and echo their sentiments that while consumer psychological research needs to provide insights about consumers and consumption, it does not have to be constrained to the marketplace alone or be limited in terms of its relevance to a narrow set of stakeholders. While consumers make important decisions in retail settings, not all consumer decisions or consumption activities take place in stores. For example, how consumers process information could be of importance even if it does not directly translate into an observable outcome. In other contexts, the decision may occur at home, but could have downstream marketplace consequences. Ultimately, as long as the research provides insights about the psychology of consumption, whether or not these insights inform managerial practice, consumer welfare, or public policy, we believe it may be appropriate for JCP. Consistent with the journal's focus on consumers and the psychology of consumption, issues that are relevant to people in their role as consumers are also relevant to JCP. While the global pandemic may have receded, consumers still live in a world where many of their basic needs are unmet. Many live in poverty without food, shelter, or health care for their families. We are still fighting for justice and equality and to eradicate racism and discrimination of all forms, impacting consumers' efforts to belong, find companionship, and make responsible decisions. We are also in the throes of geopolitical conflicts, in the midst of climate change and on the cusp of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. As consumers grapple with the societal challenges facing them, the field of consumer psychology has opportunities to advance understanding of how consumers process and react to these challenges, and how each impacts them and their decisions. Although we encourage examinations of these topics, we also continue to welcome submissions that address the breadth of topics previously published in JCP. Following an inclusive perspective of consumer psychology, we believe that the topic, not method, should determine relevancy. While we expect experimental approaches to represent a significant majority of JCP submissions, as they have since the journal's inception, we are open to a wide range of methodologies, as long as they are well suited to address the research question. These could range from empirical analyses of secondary data to text mining and ethnographic approaches. Our perspective is that research needs to be valid and the contribution substantial. The Validity Network Schema (VNS; Brinberg & Brinberg, 2019; Brinberg & McGrath, 1985) provides a useful framework to assess validity. The VNS argues that validity is not only restricted to the methodological domain alone but also occurs at the conceptual stage. In stage 1, validity relates to assessing the “worth of specific goals/desiderata” and involves specifying the goals of the research and the conceptual relationships that will be studied. Stage 2 refers to the “doing” of the research where the researcher assesses how the empirical investigation will allow the researcher to make the sought-after inferences. Finally, in stage 3, validity represents “efforts to establish the credibility/generalizability/robustness of the empirical findings with respect to the elements, relations among the elements, and context in each research domain.” Assessments of contribution, involve consideration of the research's importance—that is, its potential to change beliefs (Lynch et al., 2012). However, importance of research can only be assessed in conjunction with its goal—is the goal to build theory or understand a phenomenon and the approach used a deductive or non-deductive approach? We ascribe to Lynch et al.'s (2012) perspective that beliefs can be updated in a variety of domains, including: “(a) construct-to-construct links; (b) construct-to-observable links; (c) observable-to-observable links; and (d) beliefs that some phenomenon ‘exists’ in the world.” While documenting or explaining construct-to-construct linkages using a hypothetico-deductive approach makes an important contribution, this is not the only way to alter beliefs. Beliefs can also be altered in other ways. Thus, efforts to maintain high standards of excellence are not well served by using identical criteria to evaluate research with different goals and approaches. Finally, to extend a quote about how good company enhances a journey, we are fortunate to be accompanied by the amazing scholars who accepted our invitations to join our team as we carry the baton for the next mile of JCP's journey. In addition to the associate editors and editorial review board members who graciously agreed to be in step with us, we are fortunate to have Sandy Osaki, the Managing Editor of JCP, continue as the anchor for the journal. Ultimately, the continued success of JCP will depend on a broader community of scholars to continue to submit interesting and rigorous articles that advance the science of consumer psychology. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Rank Length Effect

  Journal of Marketing Research · 2024-07-31 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Rank lists vary in the number of items ranked on the list (e.g., top 5 vs. top 20 movies on IMDb), that is, the rank length. Across ten studies, including both field and laboratory experiments, the authors examine the influence of rank length on evaluations, willingness to pay, and choice. They document a novel rank length effect: The same ranked items elicit more positive judgments when the rank length is longer (vs. shorter), although the differences in judgments between the ranked items are smaller. This effect is driven both by consumers’ tendency to narrowly focus on the rank list and by the manner in which they map the rank list onto their mental number line. The rank length effect extends to willingness to pay, and choice. The authors explore three different kinds of choice contexts, discuss implications, and offer suggestions for future research.

  PublisherDOI

• Price Partitioning of Socio-Moral Surcharges

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Is “4 for $16” Better than “4 for $15.30”? The Price Divisibility Effect in Multipack Purchases

  Journal of Consumer Research · 2023-10-28 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract While much is known about product bundles comprised of different items, much less is known about multipacks—a product set comprised of multiple identical items (e.g., a 4-pack body washes). Using the context of multipacks, the authors propose a novel price divisibility effect, which suggests that a multipack’s price that is easily divisible (vs. non-divisible) by the number of component items in the multipack will increase its purchase likelihood. For example, purchase likelihoods of a four-pack body wash multipack will be higher when its price is $16 (easily divisible by 4) versus $15.30 (non-divisible by 4). This occurs because a divisible versus non-divisible price shifts consumers’ attention to the unit and creates a belief that each unit item in the multipack will be consumed quickly, which, in turn, helps justify purchasing multiple units. The authors report findings from 15 studies (including a field experiment), where they demonstrate the effect and its underlying mechanism and delineate several moderators and boundary conditions. This research contributes to several literature streams, including those on product bundling, multiple-unit pricing, product consumption, and numerical cognition.

  PublisherDOI

• How Anticipating Indulgence Catalyzes Indulgent Behavior in the Present: An Abstract

  Developments in marketing science: proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science · 2023-01-01

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• How duration of storage affects food waste behavior

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2023-09-20 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We investigate how duration of storage affects food waste behavior. We propose and demonstrate a negative impact of duration of storage: even when two packaged food products are otherwise identical (i.e., same manufacturing/expiration dates, not expired, and unopened), the product that has been stored for a longer duration under current ownership is more likely to be wasted and is likely to be wasted in greater quantities. This occurs because duration of storage lowers consumers' perceptions of food freshness, even when normative justification is not possible. The duration of storage has an independent effect over and above those due to manufacturing and expiration dates, and the effect persists in both single and joint evaluations. We draw from research in several areas, including ownership, mental accounting, food science, and waste management to develop our theory. We report findings from six pre‐registered studies, provide process evidence, and identify interventions to lower food waste.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Amar Cheema

  43 shared

• Ashwani Monga

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  12 shared

• Derick Davis

  8 shared

• Lauren Block

  Northwell Health

  7 shared

• Julio Sevilla

  University of Georgia

  6 shared

• Elise Chandon Ince

  6 shared

• Stefan J. Hock

  University of Connecticut

  5 shared

• Fengyan Cai

  5 shared

Awards & honors

• Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar (2013)
• Marketing Science Institute Scholar (2020)
• Early Career Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology…