page_title: Consumer behaviour
section_title: Consumer decision styles
hierarchical_section_title: Consumer behaviour / Consumer decision styles
caption_attribution_description: Old Town Stockholm
context_page_description: Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services, and how the consumer's emotions, attitudes and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940s and 50s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an inter-disciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, marketing and economics.
  The study of consumer behaviour formally investigates individual qualities such as demographics, personality lifestyles, and behavioural variables, in an attempt to understand people's wants and consumption. Also investigated are the influences on the consumer, from groups such as family, friends, sports, and reference groups, to society in general, including brand-influencers and opinion leaders.
  Research has shown that consumer behaviour is difficult to predict, even for experts in the field; however, new research methods, such as ethnography and consumer neuroscience, are shedding new light on how consumers make decisions.
context_section_description: A number of theorists have argued that certain fundamental decision-making styles can be identified.  A decision-making style is defined as a "mental orientation characterising a consumer's approach to making choices."  Sproles and Kendall (1986) developed a consumer style inventory (CSI) consisting of eight factors, such as price-sensitivity, quality-consciousness, brand-consciousness, novelty-seeking, fashion-consciousness and habit. Based on these factors, the authors developed a typology of eight distinct decision-making styles:
  Quality conscious/Perfectionist:  Quality-consciousness is characterised by a consumer's search for the very best quality in products; quality conscious consumers tend to shop systematically making more comparisons and shopping around to compare quality and value.
  Brand-conscious: Brand-consciousness is characterised by a tendency to buy expensive, well-known brands or designer labels. Those who score high on brand-consciousness tend to believe that the higher prices are an indicator of quality and exhibit a preference for department stores or top-tier retail outlets.
  Recreation-conscious/ Hedonistic: Recreational shopping is characterised by the consumer's engagement in the purchase process. Those who score high on recreation-consciousness regard shopping itself as a form of enjoyment.
  Price-conscious:  A consumer who exhibits price-and-value consciousness. Price-conscious shoppers carefully shop around seeking lower prices, sales or discounts and are motivated by obtaining the best value for money
  Novelty/fashion-conscious: characterised by a consumer's tendency to seek out new products or new experiences for the sake of excitement; who gain excitement from seeking new things; they like to keep up-to-date with fashions and trends, variety-seeking is associated with this dimension.
  Impulsive: Impulsive consumers are somewhat careless in making purchase decisions, buy on the spur of the moment and are not overly concerned with expenditure levels or obtaining value. Those who score high on impulsive dimensions tend not to be engaged with the object at either a cognitive or emotional level.
  Confused (by over-choice): characterised by a consumer's confusion caused by too many product choices, too many stores or an overload of product information; tend to experience information overload.
  Habitual / brand loyal: characterised by a consumer's tendency to follow a routine purchase pattern on each purchase occasion; consumers have favourite brands or stores and have formed habits in choosing, the purchase decision does not involve much evaluation or shopping around.
  The Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) has been extensively tested and retested in a wide variety of countries and purchasing contexts.  Many empirical studies have observed cross-cultural variations in decisions styles, leading to numerous adaptations or modifications of the CSI scale for use in specific countries.  Consumer decision styles are important for marketers because they describe behaviours that are relatively stable over time and for this reason, they are useful for market segmentation.
caption: Those who shop for pleasure are said to be recreational shoppers.
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