Consumer innovativeness and shopping styles

Abstract

PurposeInnovative consumers are an important market segment. This paper seeks to investigate whether consumers' innate innovativeness is associated with their shopping styles. Specifically, it aims to explore the relationship between two types of innovativeness – sensory and cognitive – and consumer shopping styles.Design/methodology/approachThe paper integrates the consumer innovativeness and consumer shopping styles literature. It is built on the premise that if consumer innovativeness is regarded as a general personality trait, then it would also be reflected in consumers' shopping approaches. A structural equation model is used to test the relationship between cognitive and sensory innovativeness and various shopping styles.FindingsSensory innovativeness and cognitive innovativeness can lead to different shopping styles. Cognitive innovators are inclined to show shopping styles such as quality consciousness, price consciousness, and confusion by overchoice. On the other hand, sensory innovators are inclined to have shopping styles such as brand consciousness, fashion consciousness, recreational orientation, impulsive shopping, and brand loyalty/habitual shopping.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is based on a convenience sample of young consumers in a particular country – China. Generalizability of the results would depend on future research conducted in other cultures and consumers of other age groups.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research help managers to develop a deeper insight into product development and marketing. Product form can be designed to appeal to the two different types of innovative consumers – cognitive innovators and sensory innovators. Marketing communication and brand management should be based on the shopping styles of these different types of innovative consumers. Furthermore, since the youth market in China represents an enormous opportunity for marketers, the paper provides valuable insights into this key market segment in one of the most important markets in the world.Originality/valueThe paper is the first step in exploring the relationship between consumer innovativeness and consumer shopping styles. It provides new insights into the shopping patterns of consumers who belong to different innovativeness types. In addition, it also makes a new contribution to the shopping styles literature by exploring potential antecedents to the various shopping styles.