Application of a Choice Sets Model to Assess Patronage Decision Styles of High Involvement Consumers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to apply a choice sets model of retail selection in a specialized apparel category to identify decision styles among consumers, and (2) to profile the decision styles in terms of personal characteristics (shopping attitudes, shopping orientations and motivations and demographics) and desired retailer attributes related to store patronage. The Spiggle & Sewall (1987) choice sets model of retail store selection was applied to the purchase process of a high involvement apparel category (maternity apparel) with a sample of 300 pregnant women. Analysis of the choice sets model for consumers identified six decision styles: narrowers (highest knowledge of stores), shoppers (have the largest choice sets), apathetics (uninvolved shoppers), loyals (low to moderate choice set size), late bloomers (systematically have larger choice set sizes), and the avoiders (extremely low choice sets). The six decision styles were then profiled with a series of shopper and retailer characteristics, with discriminant analysis used to identify the differentiating variables from the set of all variables.