East Asian college consumer decision-making styles for sport products

Abstract

Purpose

Purchasing behaviors have been studied in various countries. Previous studies involving consumer decision-making styles for sport products have only been seen in one country in order to either identify factors of Purchase Style Inventory for Sport Products (PSISP) or classify consumer shopping behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to identify consumers’ decision-making styles (shopping styles) for sport products from Japanese, Singaporean, and Taiwanese college-aged consumers.

Design/methodology/approach

The scale of PSISP was adapted to measure consumer decision-making styles (shopping styles) for sport products. This instrument is composed of 35 items under nine dimensions. CFA, 3 (Nationality) × 2 (Gender) MANOVA and ANOVA were employed.

Findings

According to the results of this study, there were significant different decision-making styles among three different countries in East Asia. Overall, Japanese male and female college-aged students exhibited higher brand consciousness than Singaporean and Taiwanese males and females.

Research limitations/implications

As consumers from different countries show different lifestyle, education, economic, religion, and culture, they might have their unique shopping styles. Therefore, the dimensions related to decision-making styles need to be explored, and the scale needs to be validated using a substantial sport industry sample in the future study.

Practical implications

This study helps East Asian advertisers or markets to rethink and develop appropriate marketing strategies as well as to understand the different decision-making styles of local consumers and better approach new and existing consumer markets.

Originality/value

This paper is important for international sports marketers to predict consumer shopping patterns and maintain proper inventory levels, particularly when marketing in global markets.

Citation

Bae, J., Lu-Anderson, D., Fujimoto, J. and Richelieu, A. (2015), "East Asian college consumer decision-making styles for sport products", Sport, Business and Management, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 259-275. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-11-2012-0051