How Uncertainty‑Driven Promotions Boost Customer Purchase Intent

1. Introduction

Promotional tactics are a crucial part of e‑commerce operations. This article compiles recent academic findings on uncertainty‑based promotion strategies to answer key questions and provide design references.

How to design promotions that better engage users?

Which promotion strategies suit different scenarios?

2. What Are Uncertainty Promotion Strategies?

Uncertainty promotions create a sense of unpredictability for users to enhance marketing effectiveness. Based on reward content and magnitude, they are divided into two categories:

Content uncertainty : the reward itself is unknown (e.g., random gifts).

Intensity uncertainty : the discount magnitude is unknown (e.g., random cash coupons).

Note: The discussion compares strategies within the same promotion format (e.g., random vs. fixed coupons) and does not cover cross‑format comparisons.

3. How Do Uncertainty Promotions Work?

Compared with certain rewards, uncertainty promotions increase purchase intention through several mechanisms:

1. Triggering Curiosity

According to information‑gap and intrinsic motivation theories, when the reward content is uncertain, users’ curiosity is aroused, boosting their willingness to buy.

Providing partial clues (e.g., multiple possible gifts or images) amplifies curiosity and the promotion’s impact.

If users receive no prior information, curiosity is low and the effect diminishes.

2. Eliciting Positive Experiences

From the perspective of positive affect theory, uncertainty can provide surprise, excitement, and imagination, especially in emotion‑driven purchases.

Emotion‑driven buying is more sensitive to positive experiences, favoring uncertainty promotions.

Cognitive‑driven buying requires clear information; uncertainty reduces its appeal.

3. Optimistic Probability Estimation

Many users possess an optimistic bias, overestimating the chance of receiving a high reward, which enhances the attraction of uncertain promotions.

Overall, uncertainty promotions provide imagination space, trigger curiosity, and lead users to overestimate winning probabilities, thereby increasing purchase intent.

4. Suitable Scenarios for Uncertainty Promotions

Uncertainty promotions have boundaries; beyond them, effectiveness drops sharply. Appropriate scenarios include:

1. Hedonic Product Sales

According to expected utility theory, rational consumers aim to maximize expected utility under uncertainty, making hedonic products suitable for uncertain promotions.

Hedonic products : Uncertainty adds entertainment, increasing preference.

Practical products : Uncertainty raises cognitive cost, leading to avoidance.

2. Long‑Duration Promotions

Reference‑point theory suggests that perceived value depends on relative, not absolute, reference points. Certain promotions can lower internal reference prices, making future full‑price sales harder, whereas uncertain discounts lack typicality and do not establish a stable reference price.

Deterministic discounts may reduce internal reference prices.

Uncertain discounts keep reference prices stable, preserving future sales potential.

3. Applying Uncertain Discount Probabilities

The “fuzziness effect” indicates that people prefer uncertain outcomes over certain ones when benefits are vague. When designing probabilistic discounts (only a subset of users receive a discount), combine low probability with large discount magnitude, and present the discount amount fuzzily rather than precisely.

5. Insights

Based on the theories above, we summarize the applicability of uncertainty promotion strategies across different scenarios.

References

Shou Zhi‑gang, Zheng Wei‑hua. Research on Uncertainty‑Based Promotion Strategies: Theoretical Review and Recent Advances. Foreign Economics & Management, 2017(3).