Assessing Consumer Purchasing Decision Styles: An Empirical Investigation From South Africa

Abstract

The determinants of how and why people shop has been a topical matter to many people for many years. This had a stimulus effect on the development and proliferation of a diversity of consumer typologies. The purpose of this study was to develop a typology of South African Generation Y consumers in their purchasing decisions. The study adopted a quantitative approach in which a structured questionnaire was used to survey 294 Generation Y consumers who were selected using an integration of non-probability convenience and judgement sampling methods. Seven groups of Generation Y consumers, namely quality conscious, brand conscious, novelty seeking, hedonistic, confused by over-choice, habitual, brand loyal, and fashion conscious were identified. Differences were found between consumers who are confused by over-choice and younger Generation Y consumers. Younger consumers were found to be more confused by over-choice compared to their older counterparts. Findings of this study suggest that retailers should use communication channels which would be more easily understood by Generation Y consumers, and they should provide information that assists buyers to make a rational decision in the buying process.