Consumer Management in Internet Age: A Study of Indian Car Buyers Digital Communication Adoption by Applying Competing Models

Abstract

Consumer management has always been a challenging task for marketers. The task becomes even more challenging in internet age witnessing proliferation of emerging marketing practices with each passing year. Digital marketing communication has emerged as the most preferred communication alternative in recent years. Consumer have adopted digital communication in their buying decision process for number of product categories, still the adoption has not been studied adequately for products lying in extended problem solving category. This study compares the most popular technology adoption models to predict the intentions of Indian car buyers to use digital communication while making a car buying decision to better under the consumer management. Primary data was obtained from 801 car buyers consisting of both actual and potential buyers from Delhi. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate and compare the models in terms of overall fit, explanatory power and significance. The results of the study revealed that Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour in explaining the digital communication adoption which could be used by the marketers for better consumer management.