Abstract
In South Africa, studies have found changes in consumption and credit usage over time to be significant amongst low-income consumers. Yet, there has been limited empirical research on consumer behaviour in South Africa and even less on low-income consumerism. This study, which explores the relationship between materialism and indebtedness among a sample of low-income, instalment paying consumers of South Africa's largest catalogue retailer, aims to augment our understanding of these phenomena, whilst making some international comparisons.The study assesses whether (i) consumers display strong characteristics of materialism and (ii) whether materialism is a significant variable in predicting the consumers‟ propensity for incurring debt. It is concluded that low-income consumers are indeed highly materialistic. The study further suggests the presence of statistically significant relationships between consumers' levels of indebtedness and the demographic variables age and gender. However, materialism and monthly income are not significant in determining a consumer‟s level of indebtedness.While the decision to conduct the study on client data from one particular retailer, limits the extent to which the findings can be generalised to the larger South African population, the results do provide a number of important insights, which contribute to the scant body of literature on low-income consumer behaviour in the RSA.
Highlights
In recent years South Africans‟ spending patterns and levels of indebtedness have received significant media attention and regulators, monetary policy committees and businesses alike have been keeping a close watch on this country‟s evolving “culture of consumption” (Richins & Dawson, 1990:169)
The key objective of this study is to develop an understanding of the relationship between materialism and indebtedness within the South African low-income consumer population
While the mean materialism scores for the Brazilian study are generally found to be lower than for the South African study, the information provided in Table 10 is not sufficient to conclude that levels of materialism amongst the sampled HomeChoice consumers are significantly different from the levels of materialism observed in Brazil
Summary
In recent years South Africans‟ spending patterns and levels of indebtedness have received significant media attention and regulators, monetary policy committees and businesses alike have been keeping a close watch on this country‟s evolving “culture of consumption” (Richins & Dawson, 1990:169). The current study seeks to provide insights into consumer behaviour in South Africa, as to why levels of consumption and indebtedness have been steadily increasing by exploring three pertinent concepts in consumer behaviour research – materialism, indebtedness and low-income consumerism. The key objective of this study is to develop an understanding of the relationship between materialism and indebtedness within the South African low-income consumer population. To achieve this objective, we seek to understand whether recent patterns of increased consumption and indebtedness in South Africa, particular amongst low-income consumers, might be ascribed to higher levels of materialism.
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