Consumer Involvement and Decision Making

Consumer Involvement and Decision Making

The involvement theory is based on the concept that there are low and high involvement con­sumers and there are high and low involvement purchases. According to this theory consumers involvement depends on the degree of relevance of purchase to a consumer. If for instance, consumer wants to buy a packet of tea or food or bread or butter he does not feel very much involved. It is because the life of these products is very short and ones consumed, they exhaust. If the experience with the product is not good, next time some other brand can be purchased.

However, this is not true in case of consumer durables and certain services. If one buys an automobile, refrigerator, air conditioner, furniture, or a house he is forced to use it for long period and cannot change early and if he decides to dispose off there is big loss. Hence in these products there is high degree of involvement, therefore, consumer takes a decision after lot of deliberations. In case of insurance policy ones taken one has to live with it.

Based on this hypothesis researchers have developed theories of high relevant/high involvement, low relevance/low involvement. In case of high involvement products the consumer collects all possible information and access it in detail based on his knowledge and makes efforts to get the opinion of family members, relatives and friends and some times even of experts.

If some one decides to buy a car he will consider large number of attributes but in case of daily consumption items, the same consumer will make quick and effortless decision. The involvement is dependent not only on nature of product or service to be purchased but also on the psychology of the consumers. Even for same product involvement is not uniform for all consumers. For instance if a packet of tea or biscuit is to be purchased, there are consumers who take it casually and simply ask the retailer to give a packet without mentioning any brand and everything is left to the retailer.

For such consumers tea is tea and biscuit is biscuit. They are not brand conscious nor make any investigation before purchases. But for same tea or biscuit there is other set of consum­ers who will collect information about various brands available in the market and their attributes. Thus, degree of involvement differs not only on the nature of product but also on the psychology of consumers.

Some consumers take risk even for vital services and products. They take decisions without consideration of all attributes. For instance, if some one needs to be admitted into a hospital for treatment of serious injury or fracture there are persons who will take treatment in a nearby hospital. But there are other persons who in a similar situation will make lot of inquiry before deciding the hospital for admission.

Thus, there are two set of factors which decide the degree of involvement:

1. The nature of product or service and
2. The psychology of the consumer

Still it can be generalized that degree of involvement depends upon perceived risks in buying a particular product, the higher the risk, the deeper is the involvement. Based on this generalization there can be three degrees of involvement – high, medium and low depending upon period of impact of purchases. Higher degree of involvement is in a product of long life or in services which have long term impact on consumer. The medium degree of involvement is in items or services which have medium term impact upon life and the low involvement is in product and services which have short life and once used cannot be used again, “a few illustrations are given in Table 1”.

Antecedents of Involvement

The degree of involvement depends upon past history of buyer i.e. on his level of knowledge, information, psychology, culture, life style, social system. Depending upon the circumstance of an individual, his involvement differs even for the same service or product. There is no clear cut and universally acceptable definition of involvement.

According to one view there are five types of involvement namely:

1. Ego involvement
2. Commitment
3. Communication involvement
4. Purchase importance
5. Extent of information secured

Accounting to Judith L. Zaichkowsky (conceptualizing) involvement (Journal of Advertising 15 (2) 1986), the involvement theory deals with advertising, with products, and with purchase decisions.

There are other researchers who see the person, product and situation as major important part of involvement. According to David W. Firm in his article on the Integrated Information Response Model in Journal of Advertising (1984) the involvement depends upon purchase situation.

In spite of the fact that there is no unimanity about the concept of involvement, it is an important element of consumer behavior and purchases of all high value and durable products depend upon it. Similarly, services which are vital for life like medical services there is high level of involvement.

Ego involvement is to satisfy ones ego. For instance, if in a family there are five – members husband, wife, two daughters and one son every one would like to be involved in purchase decision not only for a product he consumes directly but also for products consumed by other family members.

Wife would like to be involved in purchase of shaving cream, underwear and garments for her hus­bands. Husband would like to be involved in purchase of cosmetics for the use by his wife and /or daughters. The son and daughters would like to be involved in purchase of TV, Car, house for satisfaction of their ego that they must be consulted before purchase and due importance should be given to their views-likings / disliking’s of a particular brand or model of a brand.

Commitment is another factor of involvement. If wife or son has to be treated for any illness, husband or parents are highly involved in countries like India where there is great attachment in each other. Parents are committed that their children get best education within their means so that they may make good future for themselves.

Communication involvement relates to share the available information with others in the family and /or organization who are involved in buying a product or service. For example, if a right dentist is to be located for treatment and if one member has some information on the subject, he should commu­nicate it to the person who is going to take a decision.

Similarly, if someone is going to buy a car and someone has information about one or more models he should communicate to other members. The other side of communication involvement is that marketer must make the information reach the consumer i.e. there should be proper and effective communication between seller and buyer whether it is FMCG or consumer durables or in industrial goods.

The involvement also depends to a great degree on the importance of purchase. If some one needs bypass surgery of heart best possible hospital and heart surgeon will have to be located, thus there has to be high degree of involvement. If an house or flat costing Rs. 10 lakhs to Rs. 50 lakhs or more has to be purchased the location should be healthy, house title should be clear to avoid risk of ownership. Against this if one is buying wheat or sweets there are little risk and so level of involvement is low.

The extent of information search is part of purchase importance. If the purchase is important; information search is intensive from all possible sources. But if the purchase is not important and is of routine nature there is limited information search.

Low Involvement Decision Making

When the stake in an item to be purchased or service to be utilized is not much and the risk of wrong decision is only short lived, decision making involves low involvement. If for instance con­sumer decides to buy X brand washing powder and does not find it suitable it can be rejected and repeat purchase is not made of the same brand. But the loss due to buying decision is limited to the cost of the powder.

If one develops fever and visits near by doctor and he takes longer time than normally required he can be discarded. If some one sends a courier mail from Delhi to Mumbai and it does not reach next day the service can definitely be rejected for next mail but if the mail contains important documents delay may cause loss and so risk is involved.

Thus the low involvement does not depend entirely on the nature of product or service but also on other factors such as its conse­quences. Therefore, even in some low involvement product or service decision making has to depend upon other factors too. However, on the whole generally no or very limited inquiry is done tor low involvement items. Very often some inquiry is made from seller, but its attributes vis-a-vis of alternatives are not evaluated.

Unplanned Purchase Behavior

All purchase by any consumer is not preplanned. When a wife visits a market for planned purchases and if something which was not in the list she likes or finds it a bargain on-spot the short decision is taken for purchase which is called unplanned purchase. The unplanned purchases may be defined those purchase decisions which are taken on the spot without any prior planning.

Such purchase is quite large when one visits an exhibition or visits a religious place or visits mela like Kumbh Mela. One sees many products at these places and makes purchases for oneself, relatives and friends, for gifting or when innovative products are available. Generally, when one visits such places, he takes money for such purchases but does not know what he is going to buy.

The purchase decision in such circumstances is called unplanned purchase decision. The basic point to observe is that no prior inquiry is made nor prior information is collected. But in such purchases also often alternatives are available, and one has to decide which product is better. This depends purely on mood at that point of time and liking or disliking of a particular product or its alternative. It will not be correct to say that all unplanned purchase decision is taken without considering alternatives.

Theory of Low Involvement

When neither performance nor image are very important, low involvement is a good choice. In these situations, the impression is very vague or superficial, and the product is easy to get. For example, if you buy sugar, it doesn’t matter where it came from because all sugar tastes the same.

This was also true of wheat flour until recently, but now a number of brands are getting more involved. In India, where a lot of products are sold without labels, the level of participation is low. This is especially true in rural markets and among poor people, who tend to buy a product instead of a brand. When this happens, you can’t use your brain very much. Tea is tea and sugar is sugar for a poor person. He makes most of his decisions based on price, because “a beggar can’t be a chooser.” So, there isn’t much use of the brain.

According to the theory of involvement, the level of involvement depends on how important the product is. This isn’t always true, though. People in India who live below the poverty line don’t have many choices. If they want wheat, tea, sugar, bread, or milk, they have to get it.

But the theory still stands that the level of involvement depends on the product being bought, and that the level of involvement stays low for commodities and goes up as more branded products are bought. The level of involvement depends on the people, the product, and the situation. So, a poor person in India doesn’t do much shopping. The product is of a general nature and is used every day, so there isn’t much risk and there isn’t much to it.

The other important part of the low involvement theory is that advertising doesn’t have much of an effect on buying decisions, and consumers try new brands to see if they like them and then buy them if they do. In these situations, it is the marketer’s job to tell people about a certain brand so that they will buy it instead of something else.

There must be eye-catching displays in shops and stores for customers to notice them. Packaging also makes people buy the same brand over and over, and it encourages people to buy low-involvement products.

Strategic Implications of Low Involvement Decision Making

In case of low involvement decision making it is more likely that consumer changes the brand if he finds equally good brand in the market or there is bargain sale or discount sale. In products of low I involvement there is class of consumers for whom “brand loyalty” has little meaning. Moreover studies in India suggest that brand loyalty is weakening.

The bargain sales are attracting customers like buy two trousers and get-one free, buy a toothpaste and get tooth brush free, buy Nature Fresh Atta and get a scratch coupon free. There are a number of others who offer 10 to 20 percent extra quantity without extra price.

The consumer purchase decisions are influenced by such bargains because he belongs to none specially in case of low involvement products. The thumb rule in Indian discount bazars is that who gives best deal to buyers thrives. It has been realized by marketers that price value score cover brand.

This trend is most visible not only in garments but also in FMCG. Therefore Lux offered Rs. 5 discount. Good Knight mosquito mats offered free soaps, The management of Shoppers Stops admits that discount sales work well for its store because it sells more and attracts new custom­ers Bombay Dyeing has discount sales every year.

Since Bhilwara group announced 15 to 50 percent discount its sales have doubled. If there is no basic difference in a product consumer decision is based on discount or incentives available. But brand loyalty is continuing in certain items like cosmet­ics and design and quality conscious customers. However, the share of such buyers in total is declining and strategic planners will have to keep this fact in mind.

Now buyers for low involvement products decide on the basis of price and value over brand at least in India where purchasing power of majority of consumers is limited.

Complex Decision Making

When it comes to products and services with a lot of people involved, making decisions is hard and complicated. If, for example, someone is very sick, he or she also needs to think about how much money they have and what will happen if the treatment doesn’t work.

One hospital charged Rs. 3 Lakh for the heart surgery, while another hospital charged Rs. The person in charge has to decide if spending Rs. 3 lakhs instead of Rs. 1 lakh is worth it. In this case, psychology, feelings, price, and the size of your wallet all play a role, along with reliability. There are non-commercial influences on social culture that are taken into account. Differentiating factors include social class, culture, subculture, information, recognition, and the opinions of users.

If a person wants to buy a car, they can do so for as little as Rs. 2 lakhs and as much as Rs. 25 lakhs or more for an imported car. Whether or not to buy a certain model depends not only on technical factors like how well it works and how reliable it is, but also on things that have nothing to do with how useful it is. The buyer thinks about his status, how it will make him feel, how it will look to his friends and family, and how happy he will be that most of the people he knows don’t have that expensive model. But there are others who only think about what is best for them.

In that case, he needs to find out about all of the possible models, compare their technical and non-technical features, and narrow his choices down to two or three before making a final choice. At this point, a friend who has driven that model or knows a lot about cars is asked for advice.

The process is also quite complicated for any other item with a lot of steps. First, you have to gather information about your options and rate them not only on how well they work, how reliable they are, and how long they last, but also on how much they cost. One must do a cost-benefit analysis and figure out how to pay. It’s hard to figure out how to weigh all of these complicated factors. When a company makes a lot of different kinds of TVs or refrigerators, the task gets harder.

Model of Consumer Involvement

There is no one single model of consumer involvement in all situations and in all products but in all cases there are three major components – input, process and output. As an economist Mc Fadden (1981) has described the multinomial logic model based on macroeconomic theories of choice. In contrast, Yellot (1978) has described the same model as a descendent of psychological theories of comparative judgment development in the late 1920.