Household Buying Research Articles

Consumer Time Budgets and Grocery Shopping Behavior

We study whether and how the availability of incremental time associated with retirement and unemployment affects the types of products households buy. For this, we develop a new theoretical model of the composition and size of the grocery shopping basket subject to money and time constraints. We construct a novel household panel data set that combines purchase records for grocery goods with information on labor market status and other demographics. We use the data to document that, in line with predictions from the model, consumers buy more varieties and generally shift their spending into products that take more time to turn them into consumption experiences. This paper was accepted by Eric Anderson, marketing. Funding: B. J. Bronnenberg and Y. Xu acknowledge financial support from the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO) under a Vici grant. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4763 .

Impact of Covid 19 on Buying Behaviour and Purchase Decision-Making: An Empirical Analysis

COVID 19 has changed the world. The way we do business, the way we study, the way we socialise, the way we travel, everything has changed. Several countries across the globe experienced lockdowns. The lockdown has forced people to stay indoors and be in survival mode. With no flights, salons, restaurants, hotels, transport, and even offices, the people were trapped in their homes. The home has been converted into a workplace, school as well as a playground. Several businesses have suffered losses and even faced shutdowns and on the other hand, COVID-19 has acted as a window of opportunity for many new products and services. Consumers are hence forced to change their purchase patterns. The grocery bill for most households has doubled during the lockdown. Dining out and travel has decreased. Generation Z is devoting the budget to education as they want to upgrade their skills and prepare themselves for the challenges that the post-COVID world will pose. OTT platforms have seen a surge in viewership as people are exploring all sorts of media to relax and rejuvenate in their homes. Groceries, automobiles, electronic gadgets, kitchen appliances, apparel, insurance, and financial investments are the major components of household spending. In this paper, we have explored the major components of household buying and how COVID-19 has impacted them. The study is based on inputs from a primary survey and existing reports and information. The primary survey helps us to understand the changes in household buying patterns, purchase decision-making, and gender roles. We have collected primary data using an online survey as face-to-face interaction was difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes in household buying may become permanent changes or might fade away. Understanding this difference is crucial for marketers to formulate long-term strategies for their products and services. This study will provide insights and help marketers to understand the changing buying behaviour and purchase-decision making in households.

Do Households Use Food Budget Stretching to Alleviate Food Insecurity?

This study assesses whether households buy foods of low nutritional value and use coupons and store savings as effective budget-stretching measures to alleviate food insecurity. Interview and food-acquisition data for a sample of 4,235 households from the National Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey and mediation regression models were used. The study found little evidence of compromised nutritional quality as a budget-stretching practice. Stretching budget through coupons and store savings negatively predicted food insecurity, but it was not associated with income, suggesting that the poorest households might not consider coupons and store savings a viable option to maintain food access.

Purchase decision process and information acquisition of zero-energy houses in Japan

ABSTRACT Compared with traditional houses, zero-energy houses (ZEHs) offer efficient and preferable living environments, e.g., reduced greenhouse gas emissions and lower health risks. Currently in Japan, such houses are not as popular as anticipated and sales do not meet the national government target. Accordingly, household buying process should be investigated to develop policies to encourage the spreading of ZEHs. Therefore, we investigated which factors influenced purchasers’ intentions and behaviors. We based our purchase process modeling on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, which includes six constructs, i.e., use behavior, behavioral intention, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Our model also considered the effects of the information content buyers obtained and the channels they used on performance expectancy. In our estimation, we used Bayesian structural equation modeling and response from 297 Japanese households. It was found that certain information content and channel combinations, e.g., health aspect information obtained from salespersons effectively enhanced performance expectancy. Although performance expectancy did not significantly facilitate the use intention, social influence and facilitating conditions effectively promoted intention leading to purchase. Our findings contribute to more appropriate information provision strategies and supporting policies to promote the spread of these houses.

The impact of COVID-19 on food management in households of an emerging economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected how households buy, prepare and consume food, with resultant impacts on food waste generated. These impacts have not yet been properly understood, especially in the context of developing countries. Better understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on food management behavior of households can aid in the design of policy interventions to reduce the amounts of wasted food during disastrous events. This becomes particularly important in light of the likely pro-longed effect held by the pandemic on household lifestyles in the future. This study has segmented households in Turkey, a rapidly emerging economy, on the basis of the effects imposed by COVID-19 on their food management behavior. A two-step clustering analysis has been conducted on the factor scores of planned shopping and cooking skills. Three segments were identified: careless planners and cooks, resourceful planners and cooks and careless planners and resourceful cooks. The segments were further described using health orientation, price consciousness, environmental concern, food waste disposal routines and self-perception of the amount of food waste variables. The first and the smallest segment, careless planners and cooks, is characterized by low levels of planned shopping and cooking skills, with resultant significant wastage. The largest segment of resourceful planners and cooks demonstrates excellent planned shopping and cooking skills, with resultant small wastage. The segment of careless planners and resourceful cooks showcases excellent cooking skills, but poor skills of planned shopping. The study provides first known evidence to understand how Turkish households differ on the grounds of their food management behavior in the time of the pandemic, thus laying a foundation for future segmentation studies in Turkey and beyond.

THE IMPACT OF CONSUMPTION VALUES ON HOUSEHOLD’S BUYING BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS GREEN GROCERY PRODUCTS

This study aims to examine the impact of consumption values on household’s buying behaviour towards green grocery products. Concern for healthy lifestyles among households has created a high demand for environmental-friendly or natural products. This has shown that the green products market has the perspective to grow. In order to have an effective marketing strategy, there is a need for marketers to understand the buying behaviour of households towards green grocery products. The theory of consumption values was used to explain the household’s buying behaviour towards green grocery products. Five variables from the theory, namely functional value, emotional value, social value, epistemic value, and conditional value were included in the research model to explain household buying behaviour towards green grocery products. A total of 200 households were recruited using a convenience sampling approach. Data were collected with a set of self-administered questionnaires. The variables were validated and tested using Structural Equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings have shown that both conditional value and functional value positively influence household’s buying behaviour towards greengrocery products with the exception of emotional value, social value, and epistemic value. This study has thus indicated that elements such as quality, price, and promotion of the green grocery products are important in the marketing strategies planning in attracting more consumers. This study has also provided an insight into the household’s buying behaviour towards green grocery products in Malaysian context.

Macroeconomic and distributional effects of mortgage guarantee programs for the poor

Government-driven mortgage guarantee programs (for example, loans insured through the Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Rural Housing Service) aim to help financially disadvantaged households buy and own their houses. This study analyzes the macroeconomic and distributional effects of these government programs. We propose a quantitative model where households endogenously choose their mortgage types either with or without government guarantees. Households that take out mortgages with government guarantees pay an up-front insurance premium, while those that choose mortgages without guarantees face borrowing limits. Our results show that a hypothetical decline in government subsidies for mortgage guarantee programs can improve aggregate household welfare, mainly due to endogenous changes in mortgage interest rates and tax burdens, rather than in housing prices. The welfare implications are different across households, depending on their financial status.

Why households buy bottled water: a survey of household perceptions in the Philippines

AbstractThis study investigates the determinants of household buying decisions to purchase bottled water or purified water from refilling stations among households in Metro Cebu, Philippines. A survey of 360 households was conducted to obtain data on household sources of drinking water, household bottled water buying behaviour and perceptions of water quality. A binary probit model was used to examine the effects of socio‐economic and perception‐based variables on the likelihood that a household regularly bought bottled or purified water. Results show that households that perceived their primary source of water, whether from the tap or from other sources, to be unsafe were more likely to buy bottled or purified water. Education of household heads, the presence of children ages 0–5 years, household size and price were also found to have significant effects. Income, however, was not found to have influenced the decision to buy. Having piped access to the local water district and knowledge of government assurances about water safety were also not found to have a significant impact.

New mechanisms in decentralized electricity trading to stabilize the grid system: a study with human subject experiments and multi-agent simulation

The Smart grid concept has lately attracted attention because of the increase in decentralized electricity generators and the development of the information communication technology. In the Smart grid concept, mutual information exchange among suppliers and consumers can be achieved to balance and optimize the supply and demand of electricity, which is generally necessary for a grid system. Taking this background into consideration, the necessity for electricity trade by which small-scale consumers such as households buy and sell electricity is now advocated to realize further stability of the grid system. However, it is noteworthy that consumers are self-interested, which endangers the grid system stability. This study proposes new trading mechanisms applied in the electricity trade and evaluates them in terms of stability and social surplus in the market. We examine their validity using experiments with human subjects and multi-agent simulations.

Organic food consumers: what do we really know about them?

PurposeThe organic trade literature in the USA makes strong claims about the relationship between income, ethnicity, and other factors and the likelihood of purchasing organic food products. However, previous economic research focusing on the socio‐economic characteristics of organic food consumers yields mixed findings. One explanation for the literature's inconsistent findings is that most studies rely on one specific product or one region of the country, or base their analysis on data collected from in‐store surveys. Another shortcoming in the existing literature is the failure to account for how access to organic food influences the likelihood of buying organic food. This paper's goal is to identify what is known, as well as what is not known, about consumers of organic food.Design/methodology/approachThe paper extends the literature through the combination of a novel approach and unique dataset of US consumers, and addresses the relationship between demographic traits and the likelihood of buying organic food. The dataset consists of primary data recording all purchases of food as well as household demographic data, such as income, education, gender, and ethnicity, over a one‐year period for 44,000 households. The study uses different discrete choice models and multiple product categories to explore the likelihood of buying organic food from many angles, in order to assess the robustness of the statistical relationship between income, education, ethnicity, and other factors on the likelihood of buying organic food, as well as the frequency of buying organic food.FindingsThe results indicate that education has a strong effect on the likelihood of buying organic products, and that the impact of marital status, income, and access to organic are consistent across models. The findings also suggest that further research on the links between ethnicity and consumption of organic food is necessary.Research limitations/implicationsOne possible drawback to this dataset is that older, urban households are overrepresented, in comparison to the entire USA.Practical implicationsThese findings will appeal to those interested in consumer behavior in addition to those interested in organic food consumption, from both the research and trade perspectives. The research indicates that access to organic food is an important determinant of the likelihood of a household buying organic food, the industry in the USA can expand sales by increasing consumer access to organic food.Originality/valueThis paper's unique contribution is the exploration of the robustness of the impact of different factors on the likelihood of buying organic food. The inclusion of access to organic food is also new to the literature, and as expected, households with greater access to organic food are more likely to purchase organic food.

Changing Perception of Avian Influenza Risk, Hong Kong, 2006–2010

Changing Perception of Avian Influenza Risk, Hong Kong, 2006–2010

Revisiting and revising Alderson’s formula to measure the productivity of the aggregate marketing system

In response to a swirling controversy over high costs, wastes and inefficiencies in marketing, Wroe Alderson (1948) proposed a novel formula to measure the productivity (or efficiency) of the marketing system. His dual input—output formulation represented a significant conceptual advance over marketing efficiency measures that had gone before or have come after. Alderson’s main contribution was to add a measure of household purchasing productivity to the standard economic formulation of the aggregate marketing productivity of business firms. There were, however, conceptual, operational and empirical problems with the formula, particularly with Alderson’s inclusion of household buying behavior. Because the conceptual challenges appeared so intractable and also because the difficulties of measurement seemed so insurmountable, the formula has long been relegated to the scrapheap of marketing history. Conceptual advances in marketing theory, particularly in light of Alderson’s later theoretical work, along with the availability of data sources hitherto unavailable, now make empirically testing the efficiency formula a realistic possibility. Consequently, it is worth revisiting the formula and reexamining the conceptual challenges so that one of Alderson’s most brilliant theoretical contributions to marketing thought may finally be conceptually resurrected and empirically tested.

Some Thoughts on Demand Theory

Demand theory has a rich heritage, but some underlying principles still need to be looked at. A person's utility really fluctuates more like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and man is not perfectly rational or all knowing. Logit analysis has a place in demand estimation. Researchers need to look more at the household's budget constraint besides just interest rates to determine household buying patterns.

A small open economy model with transaction costs in foreign capital

In this paper we develop a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model for a small open economy in the real business cycle modeling tradition. Household preferences depend on private and public consumption and leisure. Production technology depends on public capital. Government finances its investment, consumption and transfer payments by means of a proportional income tax rate. Households buy and sell foreign assets in an international capital market with transaction costs and also receive transfer payments from abroad. We calibrate the model for the Greek economy. The volatility, persistence, and co-movement properties of the business cycle component of the data generated by the model are broadly consistent with the actual behavior of the corresponding actual data. We use the model to investigate the response of major macroeconomic variables to temporary and permanent changes in government policy variables, foreign transfers, and the rate on return of foreign assets. We find that increasing government consumption and domestic transfers financed through distorting taxation lowers capital, labor (in most cases) and output while it increases foreign asset holdings, both in the short and the long run. Increasing government investment financed by distorting taxation eventually increases capital and output and decreases labor. Finally transfers from abroad decrease capital, labor and output, while they increase consumption.

Some Economic Implications of Third World Roguery: A Case Study of Monrovia, Liberia

As Third World nations urbanize and industrialize, they face rising crime rates. In Liberia, thieves who steal money and goods from residences are called “rogues.” Roguing is an accepted part of life in Monrovia. However, the upper and middle/low income groups protect themselves in unique ways: while the middle/low income households have a surveillance system provided by an extended family, the upper income group hire private guards. Roguing can be regarded as a tax or transfer payment—the value of the goods and money stolen is transferred to the thief. Although the rogue tax is unavoidable, upper income households can choose the form in which the tax is paid. This environmental tax can be divided into residential losses due to theft that are a form of transfer payment and expenditures for protection that support a thriving private crime control industry. A household buying complete surveillance can expect to pay $2,400, and to be rogued at least once (with a loss of about $2,000) during a two year period. One roguing every two years establishes a marginal benefit which approximates the marginal cost of rogue control. An upper income household that purchases no crime control units can anticipate a $200 rogue loss every two months. From a macroeconomic viewpoint, stealing represents a transfer of income to the thief—the income level is not changed. Because the upper income groups minimize their theft rate with large expenditures on private crime control units, a million dollar industry is created in Monrovia. By choosing to pay a total rogue tax of $2,600 instead of losing $2,400 every two years, some 1,400 to 1,500 households directly generate $3,360,000 to $3,600,000 in income every two years. Should either the victimization rate or the loss per roguing increase, households will raise their crime control expenditures, and, thereby, generate additional income. Nonetheless, if the environmental rogue tax in Monrovia continues to rise, the government will be forced to divert more funds to social defense for the marginal benefits and marginal expenditures for crime control will equate at a cost that is too expensive for the upper income group. However, as the government begins to assume increasing rogue costs, it is important to create added deterrents instead of merely replacing the million dollar private guard industry.

Influence of Store Selection in Household Buying

Results of controlled-store studies do not necessarily represent true consumer behavior. The controlled-store study reported here of sales of experimental beef cuts, shows that findings may be biased by the store or stores selected for an experiment.

Influence of Store Selection in Household Buying

Influence of Store Selection in Household Buying