‘Looking sharp’: Price typeface influences awareness of spending in mobile payment

Abstract

We investigate whether the typeface used to display the purchase amount in thecontext of mobile payment influences consumers' awareness of spending. The evi-dence suggests that prices displayed in angular (vs. round) typeface increase theawareness of spending in the context of mobile payment via the perceived harshnessof the typeface and the experienced pain of payment (Studies 1–3, 5, and 6). Angular(vs. round) typeface also has downstream consequences for payment behavior, in-dicating that the amount displayed with the angular typeface increases the hesita-tion to press the“pay”button (Studies 2 and 6). Our results also demonstrate thatthe typeface effect on the awareness of spending is moderated by the purchaseamount (Study 3). The robust typeface effect documented for Japanese participants(Studies 1–3) is not observed in North Americans (Studies 4 and 5), highlighting therole of culture. Finally, we replicate the price typeface effect (Studies 1–3) in asituation that is closer to the context of real mobile shopping and demonstrate thatprice typeface impact people's willingness to spend on the next grocery shop (Study6). Our research contributes to the scarce literature on addressing the profligacyissues associated with mobile payments and broadly cashless payments.