Consumers' decision-making style as a basis for market segmentation

Abstract

consumer behaviour, eg personality, 2 attitude 3 or lifestyle. 4 One approach to categorising consumer behaviour is to identify decision-making typologies. Such typologies aim to attribute certain decision-making traits to consumers in order to classify them as economic, 5 Understanding buying-related decision-making behaviour of consumers is important for companies' strategic marketing activities and effective communication with different consumer segments is helped by understanding psychological constructs which relate to Abstract Decision-making styles are important to marketing because they determine consumer behaviour, are relatively stable over time and thus are relevant for market segmentation. The need to test the generalisability of Sproles and Kendall's 1 consumer styles inventory (CSI) in different countries and an attempt to extend the original work led the authors to test the structure of decision-making styles of German shoppers and its use in segmenting consumers. From a sample of 455 German consumers, a seven-dimensional structure of decision-making styles was found using principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Cluster analysis identified six meaningful and distinct decision-making groups. These decision-making groups can be viewed as basic segments that can be used in conjunction with traditional market segmentation approaches. Implications for marketing research and practitioners are discussed. 16 The objective of this study was to examine the usefulness of the CSI for apathetic, 6 quality conscious, 7 choosy, 8 information seeking, 9 price conscious, 10 variety seeking 11 or brand loyal. 12 Despite its intuitive appeal, the latter approach can be criticised because it is doubtful that consumers can be grouped into distinct unidimensional behaviour typologies. Labelling a consumer always as either 'economic' or 'price conscious' is unrealistically simplistic and does not reflect the growing research into the so-called 'hybrid consumer'. 13 Consumers are rarely exclusively fashion or price conscious, but tend to make buying decisions related to a specific buying situation. Therefore, for most consumers, several decision-making dimensions prevail. In addition, existing characterisations are based on separate theoretical concepts and consequently only capture certain aspects of consumer decision-making behaviour. This means the existing decision-making typologies are often unrelated and their practical relevance is limited. Klaus-Peter Wiedmann Gianfranco WalshMore recent approaches attempt to address and avoid these weaknesses by postulating a multidimensional

The Role of Gender Differences in Determining the Style of Consumer Decision-Making

“…However, they formed two different factors in our study and it can be said that this may have resulted from cultural differences. This can be seen from other studies in which different consumer styles have been obtained in various countries and cultures (Hafstrom, et al, 1992;Durvasula et al, 1993;Lysonski, et al, 1996;Fan and Xiao, 1998;Hiu et al, 2001;Walsh et al, 2001).…”

“…Brand-loyal and habitual means shopping only from favorite shops and purchasing only favorite brands. People who have such preferences are not interested in alternatives (Sproles and Sproles, 1990;Walsh et al, 2001;Bakewell and Mitchell, 2003).…”

“…In these studies, some characteristics have been found to be similar while others have been found to be different in various countries (Hafstrom et al, 1992;Durvasula et al, 1993;Lysonski et al, 1996;Fan andXiao, 1998, Hiu et al, 2001;Walsh et al, 2001;Tai, 2005). In a study carried out by Bauer, Sauer and Beeker in 2002, consumer styles with respect to convenience goods and shopping goods were examined.…”

“…These eight styles describe the most basic mental characteristics of a consumer's decision-making process, which are directly linked to consumer choice behavior. Consumer's decision-making styles have been investigated across several countries and cultures (Hafstrom et al, 1992;Durvasula et al, 1993;Lysonski et al, 1996;Fan andXiao, 1998, Hiu et al, 2001;Walsh et al, 2001;Tai, 2005), convenience and shopping goods (Bauer, et al, 2002;Wang, et al, 2004), and gender differences (Mitchell and Walsh, 2004). In this study, we first investigated whether there are any differences in the purchasing styles of males and females.…”

Exploring consumers’ food-related decision-making style groups and their shopping behaviour

“…They conceptualised the following eight basic CDM styles: (1) 'Perfectionism, highquality consciousness'; (2) 'Brand consciousness'; (3) 'Novelty-fashion consciousness'; (4) 'Recreational, hedonistic shopping consciousness'; (5) 'Price consciousness'; (6) 'Impulsiveness'; (7) 'Confusion by overchoice'; (8) 'Habitual, brand-loyal purchasing orientation'. Much previous research seeks to establish the generalisability of CSI scale and examine demographic characteristics of CDM styles (Anić, Piri Rajh, & Rajh, 2014), while fewer studies examined the usefulness of this instrument for market segmentation (Walsh et al, 2001). Various consumer groups in response to CDM styles have been identified, by using general styles and testing the instrument in productneutral environment.…”