Effect of Asymmetric Dominance on Consumer Choice of Selected Stores in Abuja Municipal Area Council, FCT, Nigeria

This study examines the effect of asymmetric dominance (the decoy effect) on consumer choice among customers of selected stores in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. Anchored on nudge theory, the study adopts a quasi-experimental design and a difference-in-differences (DID) regression framework, estimated by ordinary least squares (OLS), using primary data drawn from a population of 1,995 customers across seven offline and online stores. Of 333 questionnaires administered to treatment and control groups, 317 were retrieved and analysed. The dependent variable, consumer choice, is proxied by planned expenditure, while the explanatory variables are price, decoy effect, compromise effect, income level and product brand. From the results, price, product brand and income have a significant effect on the consumer expenditure (p < 0.05), while the decoy effect and the compromise effect do not have statistical significance. The model accounts for approximately 91.7 percent of variance in the consumer expenditure (R² = 0.917). From the results, it is evident that the asymmetric dominance, which is widely prevalent in Western countries, is difficult to reproduce in the case of AMAC consumers, where price, brand name and income continue to play the dominant role in shaping their consumption habits. It has been suggested that the business operating in the Nigerian environment should give priority to pricing, brand and income-based marketing over decoy effects.