POTSDAM -- Are consumers affected by the lack of price information on tags at factory outlet stores? That’s the key question that two professors in Clarkson University’s David D. Reh School of Business sought to answer.

Larry Compeau is a professor of marketing and consumer psychology at the Potsdam campus and Jay Carlson is an associate professor of marketing at Clarkson’s Capital Region Campus in Schenectady.

The professors conducted two studies.

In one, they found that consumers were positively, and comparably, affected by price tags that included either an MSRP and a lower unlabeled price (the sale price) or two unlabeled prices (i.e., “cue-less”).

In the other study, they found that most consumers weren’t suspicious of the “cue-less” price tags, even if some thought the tags were confusing.

The Carlson/Compeau work was accepted at the Journal of Product & Brand Management and will appear in an upcoming issue.

“This publication represents the first published research from our Reh School faculty collaborating across geographic boundaries on the two campuses,” Reh School Dean Dayle Smith said.