Retailer names are important sources of information for con-sumers, often conveying information about the respective firms they represent (i.e., Bed, Bath and Beyond or Men's Wearhouse). Not all such information is as explicit as a description about the merchandise-sometimes, retailer names include implicit characteristics that can influence consumer perceptions. One such implicit characteristic is sound symbolism, or the meanings conveyed by certain sounds emerging from phonetic constructions (Hinton et al. 1994). Sound symbolism is of growing interest in the marketing discipline, especially given its implications for consumer responses to products, packaging, and other marketing stim-uli. To date, however, sound symbolism research has not addressed the relationship between the (in)congruity of sound symbolic vowels and consonants in retailer names and consumer responses to those retailers, especially concerning size perceptions. Therefore, the current study investigates the influence of sound symbolic vowel/consonant incongruity on consumer perceptions of a retailer's prices as a function of inventory perceptions.
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