[jeremybencken]

There's a professor at Vanderbilt who published this paper on the topic (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6205769) in the Journal of Product & Brand Management.

Providing a code and its attendant price reduction clearly had positive effects on perceptions of fairness and satisfaction when compared to the control group.

...prompting for a code in the absence of having one had negative effects on fairness, satisfaction, and completion when compared to the control. As would be expected from these findings, the three groups were ranked in the predicted order (code > control > no code) for all dependent variables, including intention to repatronize and recommend the online store.

Equity theory, then, becomes an alternative explanation for reactions to code provision and non-provision... the Web buyer without a code experiences the additional impact of the inequity perceived if others are imagined to have a code, are selectively provided one, or are simply viewed as "special" in some sense.

[nmcfarl]

This could be an argument for doing what the Gap Brand sites do and sticking a banner with a coupon code in it at the top of every single page. Then everyone feels special.

Though I do suspect it A/B tests differently :)

[ScottWhigham]

Cool - thanks for sharing. I'm interested in A/B testing done by "folks like us", not a college professor who "guided users through a hypothetical web store experience" like the paper talks about. Interesting though - I'm not trying to be snarky or rude BTW - I like it, just not a "definitive source" for this type of work IMO.

[stdbrouw]

So, just a little hint: instead of writing "I'm not trying to be snarky or rude BTW" you could have just made your second sentence less snarky instead :-)

[ScottWhigham]

I'm all for a suggested rewrite - if I could've thought of a better way to write in under 60 seconds, I would have.

[jeremybencken]

Fair enough. Ideally, we could look at multiple A/B tests to avoid the bias a single site's user base might have or other idiosyncratic effects of their UX.

[johnward]

Interesting. There is a site I shop at a few times a year. They always post the discount codes on the homepage so anyone can use them. It's things like save $X when you spend at least $Y. I wondered why not just automatically discount the sale. Maybe it's something to do with the positive effects of feeling like you got a deal.

[larrys]

Getting the person to do something in order to get the discount would be an action that has a positive effect and is not passive (and perhaps not even realized). Off the top I can't think of what the concept is called but I've seen other examples of this. (Like when you have to check off checkboxes on a paper form etc.)

Another thing is there are going to be people that aren't going to put the code in and you would make extra money off of them when they forget to use it. I don't know the percentage of that but it's certainly greater than 0, right?