Purchase Involvement of New Car Buyers: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

The purchase of a new automobile is often cited as the quintessence of a high involvement purchase decision; the financial risks and personal relevance of the purchase dictate that car buyers put forth much effort before making a decision. In this research such efforts as dealers shopped, brands shopped, and information sources used are studied in a large sampleof new car buyers in West Virginia.The purchase behavior of respondents in this study seems more like low involvement than high involvement. Little physical searching was reported and limited use of secondary information was evidenced. The author ssuggest that for some purchases another category ofinvolvement may apply, “ultra”‐involvement, a term coined herein. Ultra‐involvement centers on continuous attention to communications for certain product categories that are extremely important to people. When such consumers begin an intentional search it may superficially resemble low involvement because of previouson going information processing in that product category. Post purchase satisfaction was also explored in this study. While conventional wisdom and most buyer behavior theory suggests that greater effort usually results in more satisfaction, the results revealed no relationship between levels of effort and post purchase satisfaction. This finding is consistent with most earlier new car buyer studies.