Consumer Decision-Making Styles of Gen Y Consumers in Malaysia

Consumer Decision-Making Styles of Gen Y Consumers in Malaysia Introduction Market segmentation is a crucial element in securities industrying because goods can no long be produced and sold without considering consumer needs and recognizing the characteristic of those needs. Due to the highly agonistic environment nowadays, attracting and retaining enough loyal customers plays an important key role when evolution business strategies.Therefore, business should understand and target consumer from dissimilar background and subtlety differently in order to effectively adapt their marketing strategies (Yeong & Lovett, 2010). In general, there atomic number 18 many demographic variables can be utilise to segment consumer market, for instance income, age, sexual urge, ethnicity, marital status and household size. Among these variables, sexual practice has been and continues to be one of the most popular forms of market segmentation for a probatory proportion of product and servic es.According to marketing scholars (Meyers-Levy & Sternthal, 1991 Darley & Smith, 1995) argue that sex activity-based segmentation, especially if it is based on biological sex per se, meets several of the requirements for successful implementation the segments were slowly to identify, easy to access, and large enough for consumer products and services to be marketed profitably. In addition, there argon many studies in the past in any case provided considerable evidence that sexuality relates to consumers perceptions, attitudes, pickences and purchase conclusions(Mitchell & Walsh, 2004 Bakewell & Mitchell, 2006).Because gender has been identified as one of the significant actor in understanding consumer behavior and as a fundamental market segmentation index for companies to satisfy their customer demand, therefore marketer should strive to understand the gender differences in decision- reservation modalitys. In addition, research addressing the issue of gender differences in decision- qualification styles could help marketers to find better ways of communicating with some(prenominal) sexes and to guide marketing mix decisions (Mitchell & Walsh, 2004).Literature Review According to Williams, Page, Petrosky and Hernandez (2010), contemporaries Y also is referred to as the Millenials or Echo Boomers. They were born during 1977-1994 and ar in the 15-32 age range as of 2009. They are children of the original Baby Boomers and their poesy rival that of the Baby Boomers. They grew up in a duration of Brobdingnagian and fast-paced change including virtually full-employment opportunities for women, dual-income households as the standard, and having computers at college and home.Moreover Gen Y consumers are more likely to complete their tasks online in right one hot dog in making their decisions (Sengupta & Titus, 2012). Starting in 2000, when the Millennials began at campaigning college, they began to be canvas by researchers and marketers to determin e the generations overriding characteristics. Consumer decision? making styles can be defined as mental orientations characterizing a consumers approach to making choices (Sproles & Kendall, 1986, p. 268).The aim of Sproles and Kendall (1986) was to provide a potentially effective instrument to assist marketers to better understand consumers decision-making styles in buying. As consequence, they actual the original 40? item Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) scale, which identified octad characteristics related to consumer decision? making styles. The CSI provides a quantitative instrument for classifying different consumer decision? making styles into distinct categories of obtain orientation.Through empirical research, Sproles and Kendall (1986) defined the pastime octad categories of decision -making styles namely 1) perfectionism and high- bore conscious Consumers carefully search for the beaver fibre in product 2) brand conscious and price equals lumber Consumer subscrib e to buy more expensive, well known national brands, and believe that a higher price means better quality 3) variety and stylus-conscious likes new and innovative products and gains excitement from seeking out new things 4) amateurish and hedonistic finds shopping a pleasant activity and shop just for the fun of it 5) price conscious and apprize for money consumer which has high cognizance of sale price and likely to be comparison shoppers 6) impulsive and incautious Consumer who do not plan their shopping and appear unconcerned round how much he or she spends 7) bemused by overchoice These consumer are experiences nurture overload in the market due to perceiving too many brands and stores and guide difficulties making choices and 8) habitual and brand-loyal These consumers select favorite brands and stores repeatedly overtime. Hiu, Siu, Wang and Chang (2001) revealed three big(a) market segments through their issue namely 1. )Trendy, perfectionistic consumers who freque nt shopping and reward it as an enjoyment. They are raise in high quality and with-it items, read fashion magazines, watch various advertisements to gain trendy fashion knowledge and tend to supportive with foreign brand which is high quality and fashionable styling. 2. ) Tradisional, pragmatic consumer who do not view shopping as a enjoyment activity to them. They are price conscious, not interested in fashion styling and most probably choosing local anesthetic brands. 3. Confused by overchoice these consumers tend not to read magazines or advertisement on fashion, quash exposure to too much information, and only purchase local brands which they are familiar. According to Bakewell and Mitchell (2003), five meaningful and distinct decision-making groups were install in the adopt of decision-making styles of adult fe antheral Generation Y consumers in the UK amateurish quality seekers, recreational discount seekers, trend redressting loyals, shopping and fashion bored and c onfused time/money conserving. In their later postulate on decision making styles of anthropoid consumers in the UK (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2004), all of the original eight traits plus four new traits namely store-loyal/low-price seeking, time-energy conserving, confused time restrict and store-promiscuity were identified.From their study it utters that the potential of the CSI for segmenting market as meaningful and different groups of male consumers with different decision making styles. Despite of previous studies which reported gender differences in decision-making styles of consumer, Mitchell and Walsh (2004) compared the decision-making styles of male and distaff shoppers in Germany. From the research, they managed to verify the construct severity of all eight CSI doers for womanly shopper and four of the factors for male shoppers. In consequence, they also concluded that male consumers were slightly less likely to be perfectionists, middling less novelty and fashion co nscious, and less likely to be confused when making purchases compared to egg-producing(prenominal) consumers.Years after that, Bakewell and Mitchell (2006) undertook a similar study in the UK by victimization a sample of 480 male and female undergrad students, they found that nine decision-making style were common to both genders. Through the study they had discover three traits for male (store-loyal/low-price seeking, confused time-restricted and store-promiscuity) and three new traits for female traits (bargain seeking, imperfectionism and store loyal). There are few studies recently which had attempted to good explore the antecedent and consequences of consumer decision-making styles. Ghodeswar (2007) found that that seven out of eight dimensions of consumer decision-making style proposed by Sproles and Kendall (1986) in his study of consumer decision-making styles among Indian students.The only style which was not confirmed in his data is price consciousness/ value for money consumer. Gupta, Brantley & Jackson (2010) found that consumers Generation Y at Midwestern University tend to be brands store loyal when they are buying high interestingness product. Kambiz & Fereshteh (2011) found that husband and wife take a shit divergent decision-making styles and their family structure as a social-structural variable can be influenced by the decision-making styles of family members which is related to their purchasing behavior. Lastly, it is believed that male and female consumer in Malaysia may also have received distinctive characteristic in decision-making during shopping and purchasing.But those characteristic could be have equal interest to both researchers and marketing practitioners. Hence, this paper willing weft the gap by focusing on the differences in decision-making styles on gender in the Malaysia context. methodological analysis According to the past study, most of the researchers prepared a structured questionnaire based on literature review and objectives of the study. Consumers decision-making were measured using the 40-items of Consumer Style Inventory (CSI), developed by Sproles and Kendall (1986). All scales were measured on a 5-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The reliabilities of the CSI scale, according to Sproles and Kendall (1986), ranged from 0. 48 to 0. 76.The scales items were translated into Malay quarrel with minor changes in wording to clarify the meaning. In addition, some demographic questions were included in the questionnaire. And most of the questionnaire was self-administered to non-probability sample of male and female undergraduate students in Malaysia. Finding and Analysis Common Factors for both Male and pistillate According to the research study of Safiek and Hayatul (2009) in Malaysia, the decision-making of Malaysian young consumer for both gender have similarities namely 1. ) Quality consciously meaning that they prefer to buy more durabl e and quality product. 2. ) Brand consciously it shows that they set high standards and have high expectations for the products they buy.Moreover they choose to buy the product which is heavy advertised and well-know national brands. 3. ) Fashion consciousness this shows that both genders are await to gain pleasure from seeking out new things and keep up-to figure with fashionable attractive styles. 4. ) Confused by overchoice This factor shows that they feel over-loaded with the information on various brands products and find it very hard to choose the best product during shopping. 5. ) Satisfying and value seeking concluded that if both items were identical in both sample, they will carefully find the best value for money product to be purchased which is also satisfied their needs. Male FactorsAgain from the study of Safiek and Hayatul (2009), there are two factors found for males namely brand fealty and time-energy conserving. For brand loyalty, male consumers score higher t han female consumers on this factor because they tend to have favorite brands and will use these habitually. Next, time-energy conserving which was not found in females but it characterizes males who often save energy by making their shopping trips as fast as possible in the kindred stores. Moreover, males have the perception that going shopping is a waste of time and they dont give their purchases much thought. In overall, both of these results show the similarity with previous researchers, Bakewell and Michell (2006) in the UK. Female factorsFrom the study of Safiek and Hayatul (2009) research, it shows that there are three female factors found namely price consciousness, recreational and shopping avoidance. Female consumers scored higher than male consumers on price consciousness shows that female are more aware of the sale prices and more often choose to purchase lower price products. Next, female shoppers are more limited on recreational or pleasant shopping activity compared to male shoppers. And this factor is consistent with Mitchell and Walshs (2004) and Bakewell and Mitchells (2006) which characterization of a recreational consumer. The last factor is shopping avoidance which is very exclusive to female consumers and posed an opposite trait of recreational.However the high scored shows that if the shopping is unpleasant, female shoppers will tend to shop as quickly by purchasing the premiere brands or product that seem to be good enough. Conclusion In conclusion, through the research of consumer decision making styles, it offers a great prospect to understand the characteristic or style of consumer towards their shopping behavior. And this consumer style line provides a fundamental for consumer decision making styles and has practical application advantages for marketers in their marketing strategic. However this study has a limitation because it only covered a specific segment of young adult in an local university in Malaysia.For future recomme ndation, there is a need to study these decision making styles among the larger population across different segment in order to get better converge of Malaysia young consumers. References Sproles, G. & Kendall, E. (1986). A Methodology for Profiling Consumers Decision-Making Styles, journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 20 (2), pp. 267-279 Mitchell, V. , & Walsh, G. (2004). Gender Differences in German Consumer Decision-Making styles. ledger of Consumer Behavior, 3(4), 331-346 Bakewell, C. & Mitchell, V. W. (2003) Generation Y Female Consumer Decision-Making styles. world(prenominal) ledger of Retail & dissemination Management, 31(2), 95-106. Bakewell, C. & Mitchell, V. W. 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Influence of Family structure on Consumer Decision-making Style in Iran. International Journal of Business and Management, Vol. 6, No. 11 November 2011