The paradox of progress: inexperienced consumers’ choice of major household appliances

Abstract

When consumers with limited product related consumer socialization migrate to more affluent communities and adopt new life styles later in life, they have to deal with a choice explosion that manifests as the paradox of progress that creates fertile ground for exploitation in the market place. This research focused on major household appliances as a desirable household commodity. Limited evidence could be found of how inexperienced consumers judge the quality of products as an indication of product reliability. It was hypothesized that limited consumer socialization may result in a dependence on hedonics/ surrogate indicators of quality to compromise for the absence of appropriate product knowledge and personal product experience. Supportive theory for this research included the theory of consumer socialization including product related consumer socialization, as well as the basic theory of consumer decision-making as it applies to quality judgment of major household appliances during pre-purchase evaluation. A positivistic orientated research project that implemented a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques was designed to compare the quality judgment of major household appliances of consumers across different socio economic backgrounds. The inexperience of consumers in two of the geographical areas was confirmed by their limited experience with electricity in their own households and limited ownership of appliances. A lamentable discrepancy was found between the anticipated and the reported service life figures for all three groups for a list of 13 appliances. Although replacement purchases may be influenced by socio-economic variables, product characteristics and time factors an upsetting low average service life for major appliances was calculated. Findings further revealed a remarkable incongruity with respect to participants' personal rating of the importance of quality in terms of the evaluation of household appliances and their apparent ability to do so. When confronted with specific questions and tasks that related to product evaluation and quality judgment, it was found that irrespective of participants' experience with electricity or their ownership of appliances, none of the consumer groups convinced that they had the relevant product knowledge to discriminate quality in order to conclude informed, responsible buyer decisions. Findings support the view of Erdem et al (1999) who reported that materialistic values and aspirations generally result in a dominance of social factors during product evaluation. It was also revealed that product experience not necessarily ensures informed buyer decisions: this confirmed Elias's view (1987) that changes in household technology would shift consumer facilitation from "helping people to use technology" to "solving problems that are created by technology". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]