Vulnerability to Low-Price Signals: An Experimental Study of the Effectiveness of Genuine and Deceptive Signals

Low-price guarantees help buyers make inferences about retailers’ prices. However, researchers are concerned that consumers might be vulnerable to relying on guarantees associated with high market prices. Furthermore, truly low-priced retailers that issue low-price guarantees might be vulnerable to consumers’ discounting of such guarantees. This article experimentally assesses these concerns and finds that the effects of adding a low-price guarantee to a low or high offer price on consumers’ pre-purchase perceptions depend on consumers’ confidence in their product category price knowledge and their decision involvement. The article explores the implications of the findings and provides directions for further research.     

Profiling consumers in home ware stores according to their decision‐making process: an exploratory study

Despite the growing interest of South African consumers regarding home ware, insufficient research is available regarding their decision making of this product category. The objectives of this exploratory study were to evaluate consumers' decision‐making process regarding home ware, and to suggest consumer profiles of the home ware based on the decision‐making process. A qualitative research strategy was used to purposively recruit both male and female participants walking around a home ware store. Semi‐structured interviews were used to collect data from 33 participants at which point data saturation was reached. Each step of the decision‐making process was investigated during the interviews, using questions relevant to the purchasing of home ware. The results indicated clear differences as well as similarities in home ware consumers' decision‐making process. It was evident that the decision‐making process was a result of their specific need for a home ware product. Consumers evaluated home ware based on their needs, values and personal style, while making their final product choice based on product quality, appearance and price. It was also possible to identify home ware consumer profiles based on an evaluation of their decision‐making process. Four profiles were identified, namely, the quality‐conscious, the fashion‐conscious, the lifestyle‐orientated and the impulsive home ware consumer. The characteristics associated with each profile should provide the growing home ware market with insight regarding the specific needs and preferences of the consumer. Seeing that this study was only exploratory in nature, it is recommended that further research regarding the purchasing of home ware should be done.     

Material Distortion of Economic Behaviour and Everyday Decision Quality

Misleading information and unfair commercial practices have to be viewed against the background of what consumers otherwise do, i.e., what their purchase decisions look like when no misleading information or no unfair commercial practices are in place. This article provides some of this background by studying how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. This was done by an eye-tracking study which reveals to what extent consumers succeed in purchasing the products that best meet their purchase intentions when only a representative amount of misleading information is present. The study shows that decisions were suboptimal in relation to what the consumers claimed they wanted to purchase. Only in one product category did consumers in this study actually look at products that were slightly better than average, and as a result, they mainly selected products that were just as often poor as good. If the proportion of bad purchase decisions based on misleading information is small enough, perhaps it might be better to direct the authors’ attention to other ways of improving the decision environments that consumers encounter. In addition, the eye-tracking study provides some insight into how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. The present data show that consumers invested on average of less than 1 s to look at products.     

The Effects of Following Islam in Decisions about Taboo Products

This study tests the role of consumers’ religious motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) in their decision making regarding the consumption of a prohibited brand or product category because of a religious declaration called Fatwa. Despite numerous studies on the effects of religion in consumers’ marketplace behaviors, little is known of about consumers’ decision making under a religious ruling like Fatwa. A Fatwa is a decree issued by religious scholars for Muslim communities. A survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior asked young adult Muslims about their responses to a brand, and two product categories that were subject to Fatwa. The data concerning the respondents’ decision making were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test hypotheses based on the available literature. The analyses found that the respondents’ motivation in following Islamic teachings had the greatest effects in their deciding to smoke, listen to contentious popular music, but was not relevant for buying the Coca Cola brand. The results are discussed in terms of the study's theoretical contributions, managerial implications, and future research.     

Evaluation and Choice as a Satisficing Process

The question of whether individuals are rational or irrational in their decision‐making has long been an area of interest to academics and marketers, as the different decision styles require differing use of information sources and choice criteria by consumers during the buying process. As such, marketers would be required to adopt different communication strategies and stress different marketing mix or product features if they were to be successful in influencing the consumer’ s final choice.

The debate can be classified into whether or not consumers follow a formalised decision sequence of search and evaluation leading to final product choice. If consumers are not prepared to commit themselves to the cognitive and behavioural effort required by this formal process then they will satisfice their decision‐making, applying simplifying strategies to arrive at a satisfactory, although not the optimum, choice.

This paper reviews the common assumptions of search and choice, suggesting a three‐stage model which can be used to guide marketing strategy. Research into the decision process used by consumers in the acquisition of a video recorder is used to illustrate the operation of the satisficing model. Implications for marketing strategy are then discussed.     

Food choice: student consumers' decision‐making process regarding food products with limited label information

Food label information theoretically facilitates consumer decision‐making and food choice, but the extent to which consumers actually use this information during decision‐making is a subject of considerable debate. Therefore, this study focused on the importance of label information in student consumers' decision‐making process when exposed to limited label information food in a cafeteria environment. Because of a paucity of research in this area, a qualitative research approach that was exploratory in nature was used, accompanied by semi‐structured interviewing and a vignette. Undergraduate students from the North‐West University, Potchefstroom Campus, in South Africa served as the target population. The findings suggest that internal and product‐related strategies are applied when food choices are made whereby the importance of label information only features in the latter strategy. Student consumers with a label interest were more inclined to use label information strategies in the absence of complete label information to base food choice on. Those with a lack of label interest made use of alternative strategies using product and personal‐related information, such as freshness and product knowledge to make decisions. The decision‐making process was more complex because of insufficient label information and product appearance, and thus previous experiences and habitual purchasing became more important to participants. Student consumers should be supported to make healthier food choices through food manufacturers supplying cafeteria products with more complete label information and by providing students with the knowledge to use label information correctly through educational programmes.     

Different strokes for different folks: A method to accommodate decision -making heterogeneity

Consumer decision making is complex and no single perspective offers a complete theory of consumer decision making. While the research community acknowledges that there is heterogeneity, homogenous choice models dominate consumer decision research. This paper provides insights from one method that was designed to accommodate decision -making heterogeneity. Computer process tracing methods can be used to observe different consumer decisions in one product category to understand what and how people choose. More than two-hundred and fifty decisions were observed in this research. Consumers were asked to select one of nine air conditioner alternatives described with six salient attributes. The research findings clearly reveal consumer differences. Specifically, the attributes and decision types used differed resulting in different product choices. This paper reveals how methods that accommodate decision -making heterogeneity can be used by retailers to inform product ranging decisions for categories.     

Product Involvement and the Relative Importance of Health Endorsements

Product involvement is a fundamental part of the buyer decision processes, during supermarket visits, as individuals respond differently to stimuli under differing involvement conditions. This study aims to provide a better understanding of the role of nutritional endorsements in consumers’ food purchasing decisions, when evaluated across high and low involvement products. Although past research in this area does exist, a major limitation is that nutritional endorsements have been studied only for their direct effect as a single, isolated product cue on product perception—rather than its importance relative to other product cues, such as price and product branding. This study overcomes this limitation through a conjoint analysis involving a sample of supermarket consumers. The findings suggest that a health endorsement plays a smaller role in influencing consumer decision-making relative to brand or price, but it is stronger for the higher involvement product. These findings provide nutritional foundations and product managers with quantifiable evidence of nutritional programs’ influence in consumer decision-making, justifying the relevance of such endorsements and giving nutritional foundations specific leads for adaptions in their marketing and educational efforts.     

Using behavioral decision theory to assess advertisement recognition tasks by level of difficulty

Studies on human decision making consistently report that people are overconfident about the accuracy of their judgments in discrete-choice tasks. Based on these studies, hypotheses were made about the accuracy with which consumers can judge their own ability to correctly recognize print advertisements. Results of an experiment conducted at three different levels of involvement indicate that subjects are not very good at assessing the accuracy of their recognition judgments, tending to be overconfident at low levels of involvement and possibly underconfident at higher levels. The meaning and implications of these results for managerial decision making within the field of advertising are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Consumer decision making within a goal-driven framework

Research and theory in consumer decision making has been dominated by a perspective that assumes that a consumer knows what product category he or she needs. This limited view has resulted in equating consumer decisions with brand choice. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework for considering a wider range of consumer decision-making processes by linking them to different goals that consumers might pursue. A hierarchical goal structure consisting of four levels of goals; abstract principles or values, action programs, more concrete product acquisition, and brand acquisition goals, is proposed as the theoretical construct which ties together a wide range of consumer decision making phenomena. An experiment in which consumers think out loud in contemplating two levels of more familiar or unfamiliar goals reveals that their thoughts are constrained by the proposed goal hierarchy. The goals provide a useful framework for understanding decision-making processes involving product level consideration, set generation, and the evaluation of those self-generated sets. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The stakeholder product brand and decision making in retail financial services

Stakeholder products were introduced by the UK Government to help assist decision making in retail financial services. Such products are targeted particularly at low- to middle-income consumers and those in a position of vulnerability/weakness in personal finance markets due to low expertise and familiarity and a lack of interest and involvement. The current study offers a detailed investigation into whether the stakeholder policy initiative is likely to appeal to the specified target market and, hence, help the Government fulfil its objectives. A sample of 1002 consumers is employed in a quantitative study. Findings show that the stakeholder product brand (SPB) enjoys a relatively high level of general acceptance, but that it does not resonate particularly with the target market. The SPB is likely to be recognized as useful in aiding decision making by high-involvement consumers, as well as those consumers who are more familiar with financial services. Those who suffer from the illusion of expertise have marginally less positive attitudes towards the stakeholder brand when compared with other expertise groups. The data are indicative of few meaningful relationships between demographic variables and attitudes towards stakeholder products. Policy implications are highlighted.     

The role of taxonomic and goal‐derived product categorization in,within, and across category judgments

Consumers can face two types of judgment and choice situations: They may be considering products that are classified in a single product category, or products that may belong to several different product categories. This article compares these within‐ and across‐category judgments on the basis of the distinction between taxonomic and goal‐derived categorization. The first study examines how products that belong to taxonomic and goal‐derived categories are represented in memory. The findings support the view that taxonomic categories differ from goal‐derived categories in terms of the ease with which the features shared between members of the category are accessible and the type of features that are used to represent the members. In turn, these differences influence consumer beliefs, judgments, and choice sets when consumers make within‐ and across‐category product comparisons. A second study examines how consumers' familiarity with consumption situations influences the construction of choice sets. Results indicate that as familiarity with consumption situations increases, consumers construct more narrowly defined, within‐category choice sets, whereas in less‐familiar situations consumers construct broader, across‐category choice sets. The implication of these findings on marketing action is discussed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Costly search and consideration sets in storable goods markets

Costly search can result in consumers restricting their attention to a subset of products–the consideration set–before making a final purchase decision. The search process is usually not observed, which creates econometric challenges. I show that inventory and the availability of different package sizes create new sources of variation to identify search costs in storable goods markets. To evaluate the importance of costly search in these markets, I estimate a dynamic choice model with search frictions using data on purchases of laundry detergent. My estimates show that consumers incur significant search costs, and ignoring costly search overestimates the own-price elasticity for products more often present in consideration sets and underestimates the elasticity of frequently excluded products. Firms employ marketing devices, such as product displays and advertising, to influence consideration sets. These devices have direct and strategic effects, which I explore using the estimates of the model. I find that using marketing devices to reduce a product’s search cost during a price promotion has modest effects on the overall category revenues, and decreases the revenues of some products.     

How Attitudes Toward Product Categories Drive Individual Brand Attitudes and Choice

Three experiments examine the role of attitudes toward the category to which a brand belongs in consumers’ attitudes toward individual brands. The core findings indicate that what consumers think generally about a category affects their evaluations of singular brands belonging to the category. Study 1 demonstrates that both consumers’ attitudes toward a category as well as their relative attitudes toward a brand versus intracategory competitors drive overall attitudes toward individual brands. Study 2 shows that manipulating attitudes toward a product category affects attitudes toward, and purchase intention of, individual brands belonging to that category. Study 3 demonstrates that more versus less favorably evaluated categories are more likely to exhibit brand positivity effects in judgments of singular brands. The results suggest the practical importance of measuring attitudes toward product categories, as well as the utility of marketing interventions aimed at the category level.     

The effect of product category on customer motivation for customer engagement behaviour

Recently, research on customer engagement behaviour (CEB) has rapidly developed. However, comparative studies on the motivational drivers of CEB across different product contexts are lacking. This study aims to understand the nature of customer motivation (CM) and investigate how its elements and impact on CEB differ between product settings (tangible vs. intangible and high involvement vs. low involvement). Based on surveys of 2080 consumers, this study validates CM for CEB as a construct comprising hedonic, normative, and gain dimensions. The findings highlight significant differences in the importance of hedonic and normative dimensions as affected by the product category. The findings of this study can help marketing and brand managers understand how they can improve their engagement strategies by stimulating motivation-based CEB.     

EDITORIAL

ABSTRACT

Current research categorically studies two conceptually different but practically related concepts of product involvement level and demographic factors in the context of the relatively underresearched consumer base of Pakistan. It was established that the buying behavior of consumers is influenced by their gender, income level, and culture of respective cities where they reside and strongly moderated by the degree of involvement in a particular product category. Market segmentation on the basis of demographic factors and involvement level can lead to more precision in designing effective marketing strategies. In the current study, the authors also point out the sample biases that most previous studies in Pakistan exhibited. The focus of previous consumer behavior studies conducted in Pakistan was mostly metropolitan areas. The current study successfully gives evidence that to understand the intricacies of consumer behavior in a diversified society, the study sample should not be limited to metropolitan areas but should be extended to smaller cities and rural areas as well, because people in less commercially viable cities display different buying patterns. These findings are especially relevant for developing countries where there is great inequality in regional development.     

Price Consciousness and Purchase Intentions for New Food Products: The Moderating Effect of Product Category Knowledge when Price Is Unknown

This study examines the degree to which consumers' price consciousness affects their purchase intentions for a newly introduced product when the price of the product is unknown. Based on data from 186 consumers exposed to a new product offering, the results show that price consciousness indeed has a negative effect on purchase intentions, but only for consumers with a high level of product category knowledge. Although perceived risk and perceived value are significantly related to purchase intentions in general, price consciousness seems to affect only those consumers who make inferences about price based on their knowledge of the product category. Both theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are offered.     

在线促销限制对消费者购买决策的影响研究——基于精细加工可能性视角

文章基于精细加工可能性理论探究了在线购物情景中不同促销限制类型（时间限制和数量限制）对消费者购买决策行为的影响。通过2（产品涉入度：高vs低）×2（限制类型：限时vs限量）的组间因子实验设计进行了实证研究,结果发现：在线促销情境下,促销限制对消费者购买决策的影响受到消费者产品涉入度的调节。当产品涉入度高时,消费者偏好时间限制促销,购买意向更高,感知控制感起了中介作用。当产品涉入度低时,偏好数量限制促销,购买意向更高,感知稀缺性起了中介作用。文章丰富了促销理论和消费者购买决策理论,同时为商家进行有效的在线促销提供了直接指导。     

How do consumers know which brand is the market leader or market pioneer? Consumers' inferential processes,confidence and accuracy

Prior research has suggested that the brand consumers believe is the market leader or market pioneer can earn positive feedback for these achievements. The key question is how do consumers form these beliefs? This research examines the sources of information and cognitive processes that consumers utilise when determining which brand in a particular product category is a pioneer or market leader. These processes of source identification - including memory trace, schematic inferencing, direct-cue retrieval, and guessing – are applied in this brand characteristic context, and measured in terms of their relative frequency of occurrence, degree of confidence from each process, and accuracy of each process. Consumers may feel varying degrees of confidence in the different types of inferential processes, and these different processes may actually result in varying degrees of accuracy.

Results show that consumers typically evoke "schematic inference" as a rationale for their identification of a given brand as having a category characteristic. Those who use memory trace, however, are particularly confident that they have identified the true category characteristic, but are particularly inaccurate in such identification for the pioneer brand. These findings are discussed in the broader context of source inferential processes and their importance to marketing strategy.     

Intermediate Choice Lists: How Product Attributes Influence Purchase Likelihood in a Self-Imposed Delay

Many online retailers enable consumers to postpone a purchase decision by placing a desired item onto an intermediate choice list, such as a wish list or saved-for-later list. This research demonstrates that using a list in this way decreases purchase intent for the wait-listed products, relative to the same choice made without the option to delay the decision. The findings of five experiments show that purchase likelihood is affected by a shift in the importance, or weight, of product attributes. Specifically, the attributes that are weighted more heavily in the decision to place an item on an intermediate choice list are then weighted less heavily in the decision to purchase an item from that list. This shift in attribute weighting suggests that consumers may switch from more noncompensatory to more compensatory decision-making between the initial decision to use an intermediate choice list, and the later decision of whether to purchase the item from the list. This process tends to diminish the importance of the attractive attributes that encouraged consumers to put these items on lists in the first place. These findings have implications for retailers who wish to understand the risks and benefits of wish lists and related tools, and for consumers who desire to reduce impulsive purchases.