Consumer decision-making styles: Investigation of food shopping behavior

The primary objective of this study was to identify consumer decision-making style as it relates to food shopping behavior. Since the preponderance of the literature on consumer decision-making style is in the area of general merchandising, the study aims to develop an instrument that can be used to profile consumers based on their food shopping personality. The sample was drawn proportionate to population size by county in seven southeastern states of the U.S.: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Actual sample size was 800 as per power analysis. Data were collected from a random sample of 530 respondents adjusted to 490 usable responses. Consumer decision-making styles for food shopping behavior were investigated via Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) developed by Sproles and Kendall. The questionnaire conducted for identifying food shopping behavior in southeastern states of the U.S. in this study consisted of 43 items as a total, including 30 items from Sproles and Kendall and 13 items from Tai and Hou and Lin. After data screen was undertaken for missing values, outliers and extreme values, 402 responses and 32 items were used in the analysis. The results from factor analysis with applying the modified instrument to assess consumer decision-making styles in seven southeastern states identified the following 11 dimensions that affect food shopping behavior: brand conscious (price equals quality); perfectionist, high-quality conscious; confused by over-choice; environmental conscious; impulsive and careless; habitual, brand-loyal (store loyalty); health conscious; local brand conscious; convenience and time-energy conserving, and shopping avoidance.