Date of Award

5-2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Honors Thesis

Department

Business

Abstract

Currently there is limited research on the consumer decision-making process for low involvement products. The purpose of my study was to better understand the consumer decision-making process for common, repeat purchase products. Specifically, I was looking at how gender and generational differences impacted the decision-making process when purchasing two low-involvement products, tissues and deodorant. One hundred and ten students, staff and faculty were asked to look at a constructed store aisle and purchase both a box of tissues and stick of deodorant and complete a questionnaire responding to questions regarding their decision choice. The questiOl1J1ai re collected information regarding six dependent variables including brand loyalty, involvement level, and four choice heuristics: performance, price, affect, and normative. Through open ended and closed-ended questions as well as observational data that was collected, I developed a better understanding of each participant's decision-making process. There was support for my hypothesis that would be more influenced by normative and affective choice tactics than Baby Boomers or Gen Xers. Overall we found that Millenials tended to be the most in influenced by the choice heuristics while Baby Boomers were the least influenced. Data suggested that this might have occurred because the decision-making of Baby Boomers was more influenced by brand loyalty, There were also few statistically significant differences found between the dependent variables measured based on gender.

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