The concept of consumer vulnerability: Scale development and validation

Abstract

Although studies of nonrational consumer behaviour in the fields of psychology and marketing are widespread, few scholars have discussed this issue from the integrated perspective of individual characteristics and consumer welfare. Extant research has introduced the concept of consumer vulnerability to deepen the study of nonrational behaviour. The present research defines consumer vulnerability as an individual characteristic, that is, a tendency to be influenced by an external stimulation or temptation that leads to decisions harmful to the person's own welfare. To operationalize this concept, this study develops a consumer vulnerability scale. Results from exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis reveal the following seven dimensions of consumer vulnerability: product knowledge, product promotion, marketing and emotional stress, social pressure, purchasing power, refunds policy and discrimination ability. After verifying the scale's reliability and validity, this study confirms that it can be applied to measure the degree to which consumer welfare has been harmed and predict nonrational decision-making behaviour.Limitations and future research directions also are discussed. K E Y W O R D S consumer vulnerability, consumer welfare, disadvantaged consumer, nonrational consumer behaviour, scale development

Measuring consumer understanding and perception of eco‐labelling: Item selection and scale validation

“…We followed a systematic scale development approach proposed in the literature (Churchill, ; DeVellis, ; Netemeyer et al, ), which is applied in most scale development research (e.g., Balderjahn, Peyer, & Paulssen, ; Shi, Jing, Yang, & Nguyen, ). This involved undertaking four independent studies to develop and validate the scale.…”

“…The sampling process used in each study sought to become more rigorous and have broader representation of the targeted populations (see Table ), as has been done in other scale development works (e.g., Balderjahn et al, ; Shi et al, ).…”

“…The sampling technique for Study 1, conducted in January 2014, was a convenience sample of academic experts and informed and knowledgeable consumers, which allows an informed discussion of issues (Shi et al, ). Study 2 (collected February and March 2014) and 3 (collected July 2014) used convenience sampling (Graveter & Forzano, ) where face‐to‐face completion of questionnaire was undertaken.…”

“…We followed a systematic scale development approach proposed in the literature (Churchill, 1979;DeVellis, 1991;Netemeyer et al, 2003), which is applied in most scale development research (e.g., Balderjahn, Peyer, & Paulssen, 2013;Shi, Jing, Yang, & Nguyen, 2017 The sampling process used in each study sought to become more rigorous and have broader representation of the targeted populations (see Table 2), as has been done in other scale development works (e.g., Balderjahn et al, 2013;Shi et al, 2017). and university café.…”

Addiction as an indicator of vulnerability: The case of indoor tanning

“…Unfortunately, little work has been done to develop adequate indicators of consumer vulnerability (Shi et al, 2017). The few available scales appearing in the marketing literature are too idiosyncratic to be generally applicable, for example, a "vulnerability to product similarity" scale by Walsh and Mitchel (2005), or not validated, for example, a "general perception of target vulnerability" by Jones and Middleton (2007).…”