Consumers’ subjective and objective consumerism knowledge and subsequent complaint behaviour concerning consumer electronics: a South African perspective

Although there is immense international support for consumer protection, the notion exists that consumer protection can only exist in developed countries with ample fiscal resources and expertise to properly act in the interest of consumers. This conception leaves consumers in emerging and transitional economies in a difficult position as these economies indeed generally lack sufficient funding and the required capacity to educate consumers on their rights. With the South African Consumer Protection Act that came into effect in 2011, South African consumers can now claim to be among the best protected consumers in the world. However, many consumers are still not aware of their consumer rights, and do not have the necessary knowledge to pursue redress when they are dissatisfied. The objective of this research was therefore to explore and describe the relationship between consumers’ knowledge of consumerism (consumer protection) and their consumer complaint behaviour (CCB) concerning their dissatisfaction with a technologically advanced product, in this case, a consumer electronic product. This study attempts to differentiate between subjective consumerism knowledge and objective consumerism knowledge and by extension the measures used. In addition, we explored and described the relationship between demographic variables and levels of subjective and objective consumerism knowledge as well as the combined effect of the two types of knowledge on CCB. The findings revealed that the respondents had a reasonable level of subjective consumerism knowledge relative to a low level of objective consumerism knowledge. No significant relationship was found between subjective consumerism knowledge and demographic variables. However, the factors of race, gender and level of income were related to objective knowledge. A higher level of subjective knowledge could be associated with public action. Respondents with reasonable levels of objective knowledge were also better equipped to take private and public action. CHAID (Chi‐Square Automatic Interaction Detection) analysis highlighted that a combination of subjective and objective knowledge was the best predictor of taking public action only and of taking both private and public complaint action. The study has implications for policy makers, consumer protection organisations, retailers and the individual consumer. Our approach to measuring knowledge of consumerism could possibly be applied in other emerging contexts where consumers generally lack awareness of consumer protection.     

Consumer debt attitudes: The role of gender,debt knowledge and skills

The link between financial attitudes and consumer financial market behaviour is well documented. However, little is known about the role of financial knowledge and skills—the main components of the financial literacy construct—in shaping debt attitudes. This link is especially absent from the gender perspective. This study focuses on consumer debt literacy and debt attitudes. A representative sample of adult Poles (N = 1,004) was participated in a computer‐assisted telephone interview. Latent class analysis was employed to reveal their debt attitudes, and subsequently, links between debt literacy and debt attitudes were studied with multinomial regression models. The results show that respondents in Poland can be grouped into five classes exhibiting different attitude profiles. The structure of debt attitudes is complex and differs from a simple unidimensional pro‐debt/ anti‐debt construct. Although this study did not find significant gender differences either in the conceptualization of debt attitudes or in their drivers, the results showed that in all but one class, consumer attitudes are strongly linked to either debt knowledge or debt skills or to both. Debt skills were revealed to be a particularly strong predictor of consumer debt attitudes.     

Understanding Customers' Intention to Seek for a Better Deal in Electronic Marketplace: The Role of Tolerance for Sacrifice Gap

ABSTRACT

Online consumers make frequent use of the Internet to search for product and price information. In this study, an online model is proposed and empirically tested in investigating the role of tolerance for sacrifice gap in understanding customers' intention to seek for a better deal. Data was collected through an online survey. Structural equation modeling was employed to test hypotheses. The results show that tolerance for sacrifice gap was not only a strong predictor of intention for continuing search but also itself being related to consumer product knowledge, perceived control, and consumer product involvement. Direct relationship between another construct “perceived reduction in sacrifice gap” and “intention to seek for a better deal” was also found. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

How do controversial foreign country images affect consumers?

Research shows that controversial political–economic, social, and environmental country images affect consumer responses to foreign products. This study adds to the existing evidence by examining the contingent role of subjective country knowledge and (domestic vs. foreign) country image congruence in the relationships between foreign country image and two major determinants of country-driven (anti-)consumption: foreign product judgements and consumer animosity. The findings draw on survey data (N = 400) on Spanish consumers' views of China and Chinese apparel products. The results indicate that higher subjective knowledge about social and environmental issues (negatively) affecting the foreign country can lead to attenuated (positive) relationships between such country images and foreign product judgements. Further, more negative foreign product judgements can result from incongruent country images—that is, when consumers are more critical of the foreign than of their home country in political–economic, social, and environmental areas. Instead, there is limited support for the hypotheses involving consumer animosity as an outcome. Implications for theory, policy, and practice are discussed.     

Consumer knowledge measures as predictors in product evaluation

An experiment was conducted to test whether measures of consumer knowledge predict utilization of extrinsic product cues and willingness to pay for a product. Consumers have been shown to value some extrinsic cues more than others, and this study shows that knowledge measures moderate the evaluation of some extrinsic cues. Compared to measures of familiarity and subjective expertise, objective expertise is found to be a more efficient predictor of product evaluation and to be more consistent in valuing extrinsic cues in accordance with their diagnostic utility. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Emerging Market Footholds and Knowledge: An Examination of New Product Launch Performance

As developed markets become more saturated, managers increasingly recognize the value of emerging markets as venues for growth opportunities. Yet, launching products into these markets is extremely risky due to weak institutional environments (e.g., lack of physical infrastructure), making success more uncertain. To alleviate this challenge, theory points to using emerging market footholds that yield market-specific knowledge. However, it is unclear whether knowledge is realized and, if so, what facets of harvested knowledge are effective in driving performance. Accordingly, we used data collected from a survey of business professionals to examine emerging market footholds and market-specific knowledge (i.e., customer, competitor, and logistics knowledge). Our results show that the extent of market presence held by an emerging market foothold is positively associated with all types of knowledge, yet only competitor and logistics knowledge—not customer knowledge—is positively associated with product launch performance. A supplemental sample of new product launches in developed markets revealed the opposite results wherein customer knowledge was the only significant predictor. Viewed collectively, the results suggest a market maturity threshold wherein logistics and competitive knowledge becomes less influential in driving performance, and customer knowledge becomes more influential.     

Cultural Differences in Consumer Engagement in Brand-Related SNS Groups: A Cross-Cultural Study of China and the United States

To gain a better understanding of consumer engagement in brand-related social network site (SNS) groups, this study examines how consumers engage with the brand and other members of the groups among different national cultures through the lens of brand community characteristics and collective value creation practices within brand communities. Through conducting a directed qualitative content analysis of two cases—consumer wall posts in a Facebook group and a Renren group—this study finds supporting evidence that although consumers in both groups actively shared their product use experiences, consumers in the Renren group tended to explicitly express their shared consciousness with other group members, share their product use experiences in a modest and respectful way, and actively engage in social networking, while consumers in the Facebook group tended to focus on product use sharing. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Consumer knowledge and its consequences: an international comparison

By far the theories of consumer knowledge are mainly estimated in the western countries. It is important and necessary to assess theory generalizability and model equivalence across different culture contexts. This paper intends to gain a preliminary understanding of the relationship between two consumer knowledge components and four product‐related task performances, with a focus on the influences of two psycho‐linguistic differences in cognition. Based on the results of our empirically multi‐group comparison of Chinese and French wine consumers, we find that consumer knowledge is a multidimensional construct in both cultural contexts. It appears that psycho‐linguistic differences largely affect the consumption task performance. Consequently different consumer knowledge components play different roles in consumption tasks and lead wine consumers to employ dissimilar information processing strategies in various cultural contexts.     

When Fiction becomes Fact: Effect of Reverse Product Placement on Consumer Attitudes

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study investigates the persuasive effects of reverse product placement (RPP)—subsequent commercialization of fictional brands from entertainment media into real world products—comparing it with product placement (PP). Persuasion Knowledge Model and Attribution theory were applied to frame hypotheses of effects on brand attitudes along with the constraining effect of skepticism. A mixed test design revealed presence of persuasion knowledge, recognition of persuasive intent, and negative effect of skepticism for PP, but not for RPP. RPP also had a stronger, positive effect on consumer attitudes. Potential application of RPP in new product development and adoption is discussed.     

Health and cosmetics: Investigating consumers’ values for buying organic personal care products

In investigating consumers’ intentions to re-purchase organic personal care products (PCP), this study extends the theory of planned behaviour by including perceived value dimensions as the antecedents of attitude in the model. The findings revealed that most of the hypothesised relationships linking the consumer perceived value constructs (namely, health, safety, hedonic and environmental) with attitude towards the rebuying of organic PCP, were supported. Also, better product knowledge about organic PCP would lead to more positive attitudes towards re-purchasing the product. In contrast, social value was not important in predicting attitude. Similarly, the influence of subjective norm on rebuying intention was not supported. In terms of ranking of importance with regards to prediction of re-purchasing intention, attitude was the most important predictor followed by perceived behavioural control, product knowledge, hedonic value, environmental value and safety value.     

The existence and perception of redundancy in consumer information environments

Two studies are reported which examine the existence of attribute redundancy as well as consumers' ability to perceive attribute redundancy in consumer information environments. The results of the first study suggest that attribute redundancy varies widely from product category to product category. The results of the second study suggest that consumers' ability to perceive attribute relationships improves with product knowledge. Unexpected was an observed U-shaped relationship between consumers' perceptions of attribute redundancy and attribute knowledge. Together the results suggest a number of policy implications regarding the value of consumer information programs.     

How Do You Know That? The Epistemology of Consumer Health Decision Making under Conditions of Risk–Benefit Conflict

Consumers are confronted with conflicting health information in the form of risks and benefits on a regular basis. One way to understand how different consumers handle the challenge of this conflicting information is by considering consumers’ epistemic beliefs, that is, their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. In two studies, it is shown that both measured and manipulated epistemic beliefs similarly influence consumer assessments of conflicting risk–benefit health information through two epistemic dimensions—texture (simple or complex) and variability (stable or dynamic). Moderated mediation findings indicate that those who were presented risk–benefit information about health‐related products and diets that were perceived as being less (more) familiar had a lower (greater) likelihood of using the product or following the diet through the mediators of thinking about both the risks and the benefits involved, for several of the moderating variability and texture epistemic beliefs. The contribution of this research is to show how epistemic beliefs can differentially frame and inform consumer perceptions and evaluations of conflicted health information.     

Consumers' beliefs resulting from conceptual combinations: Conjunctive inferences about brand extensions

The nature of consumers' inferences about conceptual combinations is examined in this article. Specifically, brand extensions are posited as representing the unique combination of two knowledge categories or concepts—the brand and the new product class—and inferences about the combination as representing conjunctive inferences that consumers form on line to comprehend the combination. Predictions of what consumers might infer about brand extensions and of the possible sources of these inferences were tested in a concurrent verbalization study that utilized an idiographic coding scheme. The study results indicate that consumers frequently and spontaneously formed inferences when evaluating brand extensions. Both the presence of attributes and the valences of attributes were inferred. Consumers appeared to construct these inferences on line rather than retrieving them from brand, product-class, subcategory, superordinate category, or exemplar knowledge. As such, inferences about conceptual combinations appear to be distinct from those previously found in the consumer inference literature. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Consumer Perceptions,Concerns, and Purchasing Practices of Rabbit Meat in Hungary

Nationwide consumer research was conducted in 2014 on consumer perceptions, purchasing practices, and consumption of rabbit meat. The questionnaire revealed that respondents basically found rabbit meat healthy; however, better knowledge of positive physiological effects would lead to increased consumption. Transforming public awareness may also include the criticism of housing systems suspected to be “humanitarian.” The experiment-proven conditions, in which—in contrast to human empathy and preconceptions—rabbits indeed feed well and are “happy,” should be presented to the public.     

Consumer reaction to product recalls: factors influencing product judgement and behavioural intentions

In order to evaluate the factors influencing consumers’ responses to product recalls, two surveys were conducted among Brazilian automobile owners and two regression models tested. Results indicated that (i) product judgement was significantly affected by corporate social responsibility (CSR), blame attributed to the company and whether or not consumers had a car made by the brand considered; and (ii) behavioural intentions were significantly affected by CSR, consumers’ involvement with the message, perceived danger, product judgement and whether or not consumers had a car made by the brand considered. Findings revealed, however, that CSR is a better predictor of the product judgement than of the behavioural intentions, in accordance with recent studies indicating that CSR affects consumer judgements and behaviour differently. Finally, these two models are discussed and compared with previous research.     

Low socioeconomic class and consumer complexity expectations for new product technology

This research improves the field's understanding of subsistence consumers by investigating how low socioeconomic class relates to expectations of complexity from new products. The study tests a model of the relationship between consumer socioeconomic class, self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and knowledge about product domains, and the influence of self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and product domain knowledge on consumer expectations of complexity when facing a new product technology. A sample of 266 Colombian consumers representing different socio-economic classes is used to test the model using structural equation modeling. The results show that self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and product domain knowledge are predictive of expectations of complexity, with low self-esteem, low capabilities, and low product knowledge leading to higher complexity expectations. Socioeconomic status relates closely to self-esteem, self-assessed capabilities, and product domain knowledge and can be used as a surrogate for the individual-level constructs.     

Effects of au naturel packaging colors on willingness to pay for healthy food

This study introduces and defines a novel color family—au naturel colors—and proposes that featuring these hues on product packaging enhances consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for healthy food products, but not for unhealthy food products. This effect occurs irrespective of the fit between the colors of the product and of the packaging, and of the color lightness or saturation. Perceptions of product authenticity mediate the relationship between au naturel colors packaging and consumer WTP for the product. The results of seven studies provide support for the proposed conceptual framework, contributing to the literature on consumer responses to colors and packaging features, and allowing to draw implications for the marketing of healthy food products.     

Positioning Strategies for Animal-Friendly Products: A Social Dilemma Approach

Many consumers express concerns about the welfare of animals in agriculture, but often refrain from purchasing animal-friendly alternatives that address their concerns. To support consumers in making choices in line with their values and attitudes, this study approaches consumer animal-friendly product choice as a dilemma between maximizing the buyer's self-interest and maximizing societal interest. To address this social dilemma, we developed and tested positioning strategies that reinforce the animal welfare label with complementary consumption values (functional, emotional, social, and epistemic). The results from a choice experiment with Dutch chicken meat shoppers showed that two strategies—emotional and epistemic—effectively increase consumer value perceptions. These insights imply that animal-friendly products positioned to invoke emotion or curiosity drive consumers towards animal-friendly product choices, and that these strategies are most effective for consumers who base their choice solely on maximizing either self-interest or societal interest.     

Beyond “Pink It and Shrink It” Perceived Product Gender,Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation

Marketing research on product personality suggests that products possess gender; however, the process by which a product becomes masculine or feminine is unknown. This research identifies product aesthetics as a source of product masculinity and femininity and investigates the influence of product gender created by aesthetics on consumer behavior. Building on prior work on anthropomorphism and evolutionary psychology (EP), the authors broadly hypothesize that specific physical characteristics identified as representing masculinity and femininity—and thus considered attractive in the mate selection process—will have a similar effect on products. The first study identifies the impact of the aesthetic dimensions of form (proportion, shape, and lines), color (tones, contrast, and reflection), and material (texture, surface, and weight) on defining a product's gender. The second study shows that products that are strongly gendered, particularly those that are strong in both the masculine and feminine dimensions, result in positive affective and behavioral responses. Thus, this research identifies product aesthetics as a significant source of product gender while highlighting the theoretical contribution of EP to consumer behavior. Managerial implications for product design are then discussed, offering guidelines for creating strongly gendered products.