Cognitive dissonanceThe implicit explication in low-income

consumers shopping behaviour forlow-involvement grocery products

Ayantunji GbadamosiUEL Business School, University of East London, London, UK

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct an exploratory analysis of low-income womenconsumers consumption of low-involvement grocery products, and to explore the relevance ofcognitive dissonance in this consumption.

Design/methodology/approach One focus group discussion and 30 in-depth interviews areconducted with low-income women consumer at Salford area of the north-west of England to exploretheir salient beliefs, motivations, attitudes and behaviours in respect of their consumption oflow-involvement grocery products.

Findings Findings suggest that low-income women consumers engage in habitual purchasing andare not loyal to brands of grocery products. However, they often buy stores own value-range brandsas they believe that these products are similar to manufacturers brands. They do not perceive price tobe an indication of quality, rather they attribute basic differences between the stores own value-rangeand manufacturers brands as expensive packaging and the popularity of the brand name. Value formoney is revealed as a key motivation underlying their purchasing of grocery products. Consequently,they are very sensitive to sales promotions and actively engage in making comparisons between thepromotions in different stores within their locality. These confirm the incidence of cognitivedissonance in their consumption of these products.

Originality/value This paper shows that generalisation in consumer behaviour without duereference to the contextual factors identified among low-income women consumers provides a limitedunderstanding of their decision making and purchase behaviour. It also supplements the limitedempirical information on low-income consumers, and consequently will be of interest to marketingpractitioners, as it will reveal potential directions for low-involvement product strategies in respect ofthe low-income consumer.

Keywords Low pay, Consumer behaviour, Cognition, Shopping, Promotional methods

Paper type Research paper

1. IntroductionIn recent times, the significance of researching into consumers motivations, salientbeliefs, attitudes and behaviour cannot be overemphasised. However, while manystudies have explored conspicuous consumption and materialistic consumption (Mason,1984; Chung and Fischer, 2001; Prendergast and Wong, 2003; Park et al., 2007), andgiven more attention to affluent consumers, very little is known about the specificattitudinal and behavioural responses of low-income consumers especially in respect oflow-involvement grocery products. They are often considered as a group with different

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable comments and support of ProfessorRoger Mason during the period of conducting this study.

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Received November 2008Revised May 2009

Accepted July 2009

International Journal of Retail &Distribution Management

Vol. 37 No. 12, 2009pp. 1077-1095

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0959-0552

DOI 10.1108/09590550911005038

aspirations; who are unprofitable and risky, and not good for market-related research(Anderson, 2002; Hamilton and Catterall, 2005).

Low-income consumers are defined here with reference to the EuropeanCommission as quoted by Fyfe (1994, p. 2) that low-income consumers are personswhose resources (material, cultural and social) are so limited as to exclude them fromthe minimum acceptable way of life in the member states in which they live. Furtherexplanation of low-income consumers by Fyfe (1994) reveals that these individualswould include people who are in low-wage employment, and others who depend onvery little resources from whatever sources such as the elderly, people with disability,single parents, students, the unemployed and the homeless. However, given the need tohave a more focused target, and the fact that women are known to be responsible forgreater proportion of household shopping (Fuller, 1999; Leather Food ResearchAssociation, 2002; Harmon and Hill, 2003), this study is specifically designed to focuson low-income women consumers. Besides, many studies (Moschis et al., 1997;Nwankwo and Lindridge, 1998; Lin, 2002; He and Mukherjee, 2007; Gbadamosi et al.,2008) strongly suggest the need to give adequate consideration to diversity that existamong consumers as a result of a variety of factors such as their income, educationalstatus, age, gender and ethnicity; to mention but few.

With the above-empirical gaps in mind, the overriding aim of the study is to conductan exploratory analysis of low-income women consumers consumption oflow-involvement grocery products, and to explore the relevance of cognitivedissonance in this consumption. Accordingly, the objective of the study is to extendunderstanding in the consumer behaviour academic domain through the explication ofattitudinal and behavioural response of low-income consumers to low-involvementgrocery products.

2. Consumer involvementConsumer involvement has been defined as perceived personal importance and/orthe interest consumers attach to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of a good,a service, or an idea (Celsi and Olson, 1988; Mowen and Minor, 1998). Consumers canbe involved with various goal objects, which could be product categories, brands,advertisements, media, decisions, or activities (William et al., 1978; Kassarjian, 1981;Arnould et al., 2004; Peter and Olson, 2005). However, whichever is its goal, theinvolvement that consumers have for such things varies in terms of its level. Manystudies have reported diversely and provided various levels at which involvement can beconceptualised. The most commonly held view is that it can be categorised into low- andhigh-levels. In this categorisation, in situations of high involvement, consumers behaveas information processing, problem solving and cognitive individuals reaching for areasoned decision for some categories of goods and services (Kassarjian, 1981). Giventhe profundity of activities involved in this level of involvement, one could state that ahigh level of involvement equates (approximately) to personal relevance or importance(Greenwald and Leavitt, 1984). On the other hand, at low level of involvement, theresponses of consumers are often characterised as indifference and lack of commitment.As indicated by Kassarjian (1981, p. 31):

[. . .] in [. . .] low-involvement decisions, the consumer unconcernedly purchases and consumesthe product, tries new products, switches brand, obliviously ignores promotional activities

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and worries about the important events in his life the automobiles need for repairs, thechildrens grade in school, irritants at work or what have you.

Although this view seems to support the extant literature on the levity with whichconsumers treat issues at low level of involvement, it is yet unclear that consumerswould downplay promotional activities in purchases of low-involvement products assuggested by Kassarjian, neither is it clear whether low-income consumers would reactin similar manner to products at this level of involvement.

Given the lack of clear-cut consensus about the definition of low-involvementproducts, it is considered helpful and logical to highlight the keywords in the majoracademic contributions in this area (Kassarjian, 1981; Zaichkowsky, 1987; Vaughn,1986; Zaichkowsky and Sood, 1988; Solomon, 2004) towards forming a workingdefinition of low-involvement products specifically meant for this study. Hence,adopting this stance, low-involvement products may be defined for this study asproducts which are bought with little or no planning as the purchase costs, the risks ofmaking a wrong choice, and the associated benefits are low to the consumer. Amongproducts that are often cited in the literature as examples of products that could be inthis category are tea (Le Claire, 1982); household cleaning products (Ratchford, 1987),table salt (Assael, 1998), paper towels (Vaughn, 1986; Solomon, 2004; Arnould et al.,2004), bread and coffee (Ahmed et al., 2004).

3. Cognitive dissionance in marketingThe theory of cognitive dissonance which was proposed by Festinger (1957) hasgenerated a long-standing interest. Essentially, the theory states that:

[. . .] when an individual holds two or more elements of knowledge that are relevant to eachother but inconsistent with one another, a state of discomfort is created. This unpleasant stateis referred to as dissonance (Harmon-Jones and Harmon-Jones, 2008, p. 1518).

The state of discomfort, which arises leads to a drivelike motivation to restoreharmony by shifting beliefs to realign them with behaviour (Balcetis and Dunning,2007). The three modes of reducing the dissonance suggested by Festinger are seekingconstant information, attitude change and trivializing (Lindsey-Mullikin, 2003). Thetheory has been profoundly explored in a multitude of academic areas such aspsychology (Burris et al., 1997; Overwalle and Jordens, 2002; Balcetis and Dunning,2007; Harmon-Jones and Harmon-Jones, 2008) and marketing (Sweeney et al., 2000;Lindsey-Mullikin, 2003; Spangenberg et al., 2003; ONeill and Palmer, 2004). Anexample of the application of this theory in marketing is the study of Lindsey-Mullikin(2003) which shows that when consumers experience unexpected price encounter, theyadopt one of the three methods of reducing the dissonance. For seeking constantinformation, they tend to engage in biased and filtered search for information that willsupport their prior belief. They might search for information about another retailers,and substitute products that is consistent with their state. In consistency with thesecond mode of reducing the dissonance (change of attitude), consumers who encounterthe unexpected price tend to re-evaluate the price in relation to the external referenceprices. Also, higher or lower prices may be attributed to higher or lower quality thanexpected. According to the author, trivialization occurs when the importance of theelements of the dissonant relationship is reduced. In the context of the study ofLindsey-Mullikin (2003), consumers tend to trivialize the importance of money,

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shopping around savings and receiving a good deal. Certainly, this application is aclear example of the relevance of cognitive dissonance to marketing and consumerbehaviour. However, since low-involvement grocery products and low-incomeconsumers would constitute a distinct segment and a different product category,respectively, the depth of relevance of this concept to them would warrant a detailedand more focused research attention.

Furthermore, with reference to a body of literature (Cummings and Venkatesan, 1976;Korgaonkar and Moschis, 1982; Mowen, 1995; Oliver, 1997), Sweeney et al. (2000)highlight three main conditions for the arousal of dissonance in purchases as thefollowing. The first one is that the decision involved in such purchase must be importantto the consumer, such as involving a huge amount of money or psychological cost andbe personally relevant to the individual. The second condition is that the consumer hasa freehand in selecting among the alternatives. According to Sweeney et al. (2000),the third condition is that the decision involved must be irreversible in which casethe consumer is stuck in the circumstance. Obviously, following this argumentespecially with relevance to the first condition highlighted, and the operationaldefinition of low-involvement products proposed earlier from the literature review, itappears cognitive dissonance will not be acquiescent to explanations forlow-involvement purchases. But the extent to which one can generalize thisassumption remains questionable especially in respect of low-income consumers whowould robustly constitute a market segment.

4. Consumers response to marketing stimuliBrandingBranding is one of the important marketing stimuli which are valuable to marketing ofgoods and services. It is noted that brand names can assist consumers to perceiveequity and differentiation among competing products and firms (OCass and Lim, 2002;Jevons, 2005). Nevertheless, it is yet unclear whether branding has this magnitude ofrelevance for low-involvement grocery products, especially in the context of theperception of low-income consumers.

One important area of branding that constitutes a significant terrain for consumerbehaviour is the stores own brand. It has been noted that until recently, most own brandswere of lower quality than national brands, priced below competing national brands,restricted to low-risk categories, and marketed primarily by the merchandiser thoughnot aggressively merchandised (Sheinin and Wagner, 2003; Davis, 1994). However, inrecent times it appears that own branding is shifting from its previous no frills/low-coststrategy to one which more closely resembles a national brand-marketing strategy(Halstead and Ward, 1995), and contrary to common assumption that consumerswho buy private brands do solely because of price, Baltas (1997) found that someconsumers buy them simply because they show preference for them. In summary,studies are continuously pointing to the threats private brands pose to national brands(Vaidyanathan and Aggarwal, 2000; Wulf et al., 2005; Vahie and Paswan, 2006).

One of the marketing stimuli closely related to branding which helps to distinguishconsumer perceptions of brands (especially within the context of low-involvementproducts) is the packaging (Arnould et al., 2004; Baker, 2000). Packaging fulfils severalfunctions for low-involvement products. Lee and Lye (2003) classify these variousfunctions of packaging into five: market appeal, containment, user convenience,

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identification and information and protection and preservation. Accordingly, Silayoiand Speece (2004) later found that graphics, colour, shapes, size and product informationare considered important by consumers in their purchases of low-involvement products.This finding lays credence to the claim that the package picture may be helpful toimprove consumers perception of private label brands or lesser tier national brandssuch that they could be included in the consideration set of consumers (Underwood et al.,2001). However, in view of the fact that low-income women consumers constitutea segment with considerable differences in terms of their attitudes, motivations andbehaviour worthy of special considerations; exploring this issue further in that lightwould significantly enrich our understanding in consumer behaviour.

Sales promotionsMost authors agree that sales promotions are activities aimed at stimulating thetargeted group(s) to act more favourably towards the offerings of the marketers(Blattberg and Neslin, 1990; Berman and Evans, 1995; dAstous and Landreville, 2003;Peattie and Peattie, 2003; Brassington and Pettit, 2006). As an attempt to provide afuller explanation for the consumer sales promotions, Kwok and Uncles (2005) classifythese tools into monetary and non-monetary sales promotions tools. According to theseauthors, monetary sales promotion tools offer the buyers fairly immediate rewards andare transactional in nature, and these include shelf-price discounts and coupons. On theother hand, the non-monetary sales promotion tools are more designed for maintainingrelationship between the buyers and the marketers, hence they involve delayedrewards, examples of this category of sales promotions include, free gifts and loyaltyprogrammes.

Shi et al. (2005) in a study on behavioural response to sales promotion tools foundthat consumers respond more positively to price discounts, buy-one-get-one-free(BOGOF), and coupons than to other tools of sales promotion, they suggest that thismay be because these tools are easy to understand and can provide consumers withtransaction utility. Their findings also show that consumers prefer BOGOF to coupon,they suggest further that this may be due to the fact that BOGOF is a more flexible toolwhile coupon may be considered troublesome and inconvenient as consumers mayhave to remember to bring the coupon with them, and have to spend a certain amountof money to benefit from the deal. These findings partly corroborate that of Ndubisiand Moi (2006) who found that price discounts, free samples, bonus packs andin-store-displays are associated with product trial but coupons do not have anysignificant impact on product trial. In a relatively similar study, Gilbert and Jackaria(2002) investigated consumer response to the four different promotional deals mostcommonly used in UK supermarkets which are coupons, price discounts, samples andBOGOF. Specifically, their findings indicate that BOGOF is the most popular of thesetools to consumers, this is followed by discount, while coupons are the last followingfree samples, which are in third place.

In general, findings of several studies indicate that consumers perception andattitudes to sales promotion tools can be very arbitrary (Lammers, 1991; Ong, 1999;Ndubisi and Moi, 2006). For instance, despite the popularity of coupons in the retailindustry, studies indicate that they do not have significant impact on product trial (Gilbertand Jackaria, 2002; Shi et al., 2005; Ndubisi and Moi, 2006). Meanwhile, while pricediscount is thought to be popular and attractive to consumers (Madan and Suri, 2001)

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and consumers could even make extra trips to get higher discounts (Kahneman andTversky, 1984 cited in Madan and Suri, 2001), these standpoints seem to be at variancewith the findings of Drozdenko and Jensen (2005) in which consumers prefer smallerdiscounts to deepest discounts as there were concerns about the products quality andwhether they are damaged goods, or stolen goods.

Moreover, bonus packs which include BOGOF (Guerreiro et al., 2004), could beperceived differently by the consumer. It is argued that consumers may be sceptical ofthe claim such as thinking that giving the extra quantity (100 per cent more free) asclaimed by the manufacturer is not based on true typical/previous quantity but anartificial/bogus lower amount (Ong, 1999). Interestingly, however, Smith and Sinha(2000) found that the subjects of their study preferred BOGOF to the equivalent offer ofbuy two get 50 per cent off. Also, Peattie (1998) notes that consumers could becategorised into groups on their attitude to competition as a sales promotion tool.These are non-competitors, passive competitors and active competitors. This schemashows a range of attitude from total lack of interest to active participation incompetition. Overall, the impact of sales promotions upon consumer attitudes andbehaviour appears broad, with little known about the effects of these tools onlow-income consumers specifically.

5. MethodologyWith reference to the main aim of the study, which is to conduct an exploratoryanalysis of the consumption behaviour of low-income women consumers forlow-involvement products, focus group discussion and individual interviews wereconsidered more appropriate methods and used for the study. The adopted samplingmethods for the study were purposive and snowballing methods.

While the respondents of the focus group discussion and the in-depth interviewswere not the same, the initial contacts with the participants of both exercises weremade at a local charity organisation where used clothing and furniture items werebeing sold to attendees. This started with six participants and snowballed into the totalnumber of the participants of the study (nine women for the focus group discussionand 30 for the in-depth interviews). The participants of the focus group discussion wereinvited to a comfortable venue at Salford (UK) where the discussion took place. Afterthe analysis of the focus group discussion, various appointments were then scheduledwith participants of the in-depth interview in their homes where the interviews tookplace. The interviewees low-income statuses were verbally confirmed in the process ofselection to ensure that they do not earn above the poverty lines (60 per cent of themedian weekly income), which are earnings after direct taxes (income tax, nationalinsurance and council tax) and housing costs.

Focus group discussionFocus group discussion was used to gather the initial data in the research process.A group of nine low-income women participated in the discussion to explore what theyreally consider as low-involvement products and issues associated with theirpurchases. The participants were paid 10 each at the end of the session, which lastedapproximately one hour and the discussion was tape-recorded with the consent of allthe participants.

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In-depth interviewBased on the insights from the findings of the focus group discussion, in-depthinterviews were conducted with 30 other low-income women consumers in the Salfordarea of the north-west of England. Of the respondents, 17 were on benefits, or receiveda pension; and those in part- and full-time employment as at the time of the study were11 and two, respectively. The participants were recruited with the use of a snowballingsampling method and interviewed in their homes, as this option was the mostconvenient for them. The interviews were tape-recorded with additional written notestaken to record respondents reactions as the interviews progressed. Each of therespondents received an honorarium of 10 at the end of the interview for their time.The conduct of the 30 individual interviews was considered apposite, as this was notonly consistent with the extant literature but also and most importantly is the stagewhere theoretical saturation was achieved (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). For instance, it isargued that although there is no hard and fast rule about it, qualitative studiestypically use around 30 respondents (Smith and Fletcher, 2001). Also, Gaskell (2000)suggests between 15 and 25 individual interviews for a single researcher.

The use of Salford for this study is due to two main related reasons. First,its historical antecedent indicates that it has a high proportion of low-income consumers(Corti and Thompson, 1997; Papillon Graphics, 2002). Second, a number of studiesconducted in the UK about low-income people have drawn samples from Salford andreported quite useful findings (Townsend, 1979; Schmidt et al., 1994). For example, in astudy of two-stop shopping or polarization, Schmidt et al. (1994) used Mosaic lifestyleclassification to select the areas of contrasting affluence levels and socio-economiccomposition. This classification indicates that Salford and Longsight represented thedown-market areas, Didsbury represented the up-market, and Chorlton lay in betweenthe two classifications.

The analysis of the data follows the principle of qualitative thematic analysis (Milesand Huberman, 1994), which consists of data reduction, data display, and conclusiondrawing and verification. In consistency with the tenet of this method, the interviewsand the focus group discussion for the present study were transcribed and the datawere coded in reflection of the emergent themes.

6. Summary of findingsFocus groupBased on the convergence of views expressed by the participants and their interactionin the focus group discussion, the respondents proposed eight products that areregarded as low-involvement products. These are table salt, sugar, bread, coffee, crisps,tea bags, potatoes and soap powder. The main factors that influence these consumersto buy low-involvement products are habit already formed in favour of the product,sales promotions (special offers) and packaging. The study indicates further that theimpact of brand names and advertising for these products classified aslow-involvement in nature by participants appear to be minimal for this group ofconsumers, but they indicate their appreciation of the need for the basic roles ofpackaging such as product preservation and identification. The presentation of thefindings of the in-depth interviews now follows.

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In-depth interviewsLow involvement products. The interview with each of the 30 respondents revolvedaround the eight products identified in the focus group discussion. There wereindividual differences in terms of the choices among the 30 respondents as some didnot buy some of the products for various reasons:

I think about what I buy and eat because Im diabetic, you see. I know sugar is not good forme. When I buy it, its got to be low calorie (R6: Single, Aged 26-35).

Coffee [. . .] I dont buy that. I only take tea (R28: Widow, Aged over 65).

Habitual purchasing. Informants tend to have formed the habit of buying cheap brandsof these products which are usually stores own value-range brands. This is donerepeatedly, except on occasions when there are special offers on alternative brands.When they were asked for the reasons for their choices, they attributed their choices tothe price, their need to shop according to budget, the fact that no significant differencesexist between the products, and the fact that they are satisfied with the quality thestores own value-range brands offer. But price appears dominant among these reasonsas the following quotes indicate:

We are used to buying it; another thing is that the kids also like it, so I dont have to worryabout that. Do you get what I mean? Its not only because its the cheapest of the lot there.I buy it because we like it [stores own brand bread] (R3: Living with Partner, Aged 18-25).

I know there are others, but when you think of what you are getting that its the same quality,and the same taste, and then youll ask, why do I need to change to something else and spendmore money? (R17: Single, Aged 45-55).

Brand preference. The majority of the respondents do not appear to have specific brandpreferences for the low-involvement products that they buy. The informants believethat most of the products are similar in many respects, hence their choices are mostlyguided by the price of the product:

[. . .] But salt is salt, somebodys salt is not any different from anybody elses (R29: Widow:Aged over 65).

In cases where respondents indicated that they have bought a manufacturers brand,they reiterated that this was not because of the popularity of the name of the productsbut because they were on special offers:

No; I cannot say its because of the packaging or the name, or how it looks, I saw it was onoffer that time and the one we were using had run out. I just thought, oh, I can buy it that time(R13: Living with Partner, Aged 36-45).

The individuals with certain dietary requirements appear to be the exceptional cases.These respondents clearly needed to consider their dietary requirements in theirchoices of some of the products.

Value for money. The informants appear to be driven by the principle of value formoney in their purchases. They believe that a higher price does not necessarily indicatebetter quality for this set of products. Rather, the belief of most of the informants is thatthe higher prices that are charged by producers of certain brands are due to theexpensive packaging and advertising for the products, and not necessarily to a betterproduct quality:

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A lot of what people buy is because of brand name, yes! [. . .] Tesco and Asda are not payingfor fancy label, are they? Theyve got plain straightforward labels, right? Whereas a lot ofother products have got fancy labels on, which means they will have to pay more for thefancy works instead of the coffee inside the jar (R19: Married, Aged 46-55).

In fact, in some cases, they claim that stores own label brands are of better qualitythan some manufacturers brands:

I dont know why they do [believe that expensive brands are better in quality than theircheaper brands counterpart]. People just say Oh! I love Warburton then I think are they mad.Cos I dont like it, but I could be mad. But I dont like it. I have eaten it but I really dont likeit. Own brand which is cheaper is better, nice and very good (R30: Widow: Aged over 65).

The findings of the study reveal further that low-income women consumers do engagein limited search for prices of the products. That is to say, they check prices of some ofthese products in different local neighbourhood stores. With experience, the informantsclaim that such practice can reveal differences in the retail prices in different storeswhich sometimes could be significant when they are buying many items.

Consumer attitudes towards marketing/promotional variables.Packaging. The vast majority of the respondents are of the opinion that there is a

need for good packaging of the product for safekeeping and convenience of usageparticularly for products such as sugar and table salt. However, the attractiveness ofthe packaging of the products is not considered to be important, and seems to play verylittle role in the purchase decisions of the informants:

I know very well that packaging is not really very important considering what is on the inside[. . .] they (crisps) taste exactly the same, because they have the same ingredients and all thesame everything. So they are just crisps. So bright colour things may appeal to other people,but not me (R13: Living with Partner, Aged 36-45).

You know they are just nearly the same thing. There is no special wrapping for tea bags [. . .]The colour of the packaging wont bother me, you know you only throw them away after(R5: Living with Partner, Aged 26-35).

In fact, many respondents believe that the more attractive the packaging, the morelikely it is that the producer will rip them off to cover for the cost of the packaging.This suggests that the respondents show more concern for the primary functional roleof packaging than for its commercial or promotional role:

[. . .] its money that they spend on fancy packaging. You are paying for something you areliterally going to throw away, arent you? Like a fancy box of chocolates you buy, youve gota beautiful box, ribbon and all the rest of it and inside when you open it youve got aboutsix chocolates, all that appealed to you, you are throwing in the bin, and all you have left isabout six chocolates (R23: Living with Partner, Aged 56-65).

Sales promotion (special offers). By and large, this group of low-income consumersappears to be sensitive to sales promotions:

Yes, I would. I will stockpile if they were on offer [. . .] Because Im a pensioner, Im on apension, and my money has got to go a long way (R24: Living with Partner, Aged 56-65).

The data from the interviews suggests that while these consumers are influenced bysales promotion incentives, the degree of their responsiveness varies with the relativeattractiveness of the promotional tools used.

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Buy-one-get-one-free. Overall, this sales promotional tool significantly dominatesother promotion tools in terms of the preference of the interviewees. It is repeatedlystated as the best preferred by a majority of the interviewees in the course of theinterviews. Informants believe that there is a feeling that they are getting something ofreal value in the BOGOF offer, and this tool is widely acknowledged as honest in thatthey receive two items for the price of one:

The first one will be buy-one-get-one-free because its just a good bargain because you get twofor the price of one (R18: Married: Aged 46-55).

Free sample. The respondents feel that everyone loves free samples but that thesuccess of the tool is dependent on the experience after taste/usage and the price. Basedon the viewpoints of the informants, the performance of the products in terms of suchcharacteristics as taste, flavour, smell, texture and the price will have to be better thantheir normal brand if they are to consider buying the products whose sample was givento them. Otherwise, they will use the free sample but subsequently revert to their usualbrand:

Free sample definitely, I love free, free is the best price [. . .] anything that is free is good. But Idont believe in anything in this world that is free. If someone says hes giving you somethingfor free, just know that there is something somewhere that goes with it. There is neveranything free (R15: Single, Aged 36-45).

Discounts (reduced price). Since the price discounts offer immediate savings on theproduct(s) concerned, the effect of this on purchase behaviour can be significant whenthe difference in the price is substantial. But, when the offer has ended, they are likelyto switch back to their regular brand:

If its a good deal then yes; sometimes they do crummy deals, with that no [. . .] sometimes,they only take 10% off the price and its still twice as expensive as the next brand of crisps, sothats just completely pointless in my eyes, so I wouldnt bother buying them in anyway but ifyouve got something like buy-one-get-one-free on normal packet of crisps of course, I willbuy some more (R9: Divorcee, Aged 36-45).

Coupons. Coupons are also favoured because there is a firm assurance that theconsumers are getting something off the price, especially with the loyalty cards whichare easy to redeem:

The coupon will be better for me because if I wasnt using many potatoes, I could use thecoupon when I next need potatoes, if it was buy-one-get-one-free that would be no goodbecause I would have too many, I wouldnt use them in a week (R20: Divorcee, Aged 46-55).

Gifts. Gift items packed with products are considered worthless in terms of the value,and most of them are considered suitable only for people who have children orgrandchildren as the case may be. Another belief is that, if such items appear to havesignificant economic value, this is likely to have been cleverly disguised in the form ofhidden charges. As some claimed, there is nothing that is free:

No, they are only rubbish, it wont bother me, they are probably rubbish, they only giverubbish away. You know that and I know that (R3: Living with Partner, Aged 18-25).

Competitions. Competitions to win something are the least popular of all promotionaltools. The main reason is because it is considered to be too competitive, and the chance

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of winning is very low. Respondents believe it amounts to a waste of time and effort,hence, they claim it could not really trigger them to try a product:

Its too much messing about, carrying it about [. . .] I cant see properly to do it. I just cant bebothered [. . .] No, Im too old for that. I am not clever enough (R28: Widow, Aged over 65).

Point-of-sale promotion displays. Findings indicate that some of the respondents areinfluenced by point-of-sale displays in their purchases:

Yes, definitely, any woman who says she doesnt look at them is lying. Especially, now thatTesco and Iceland are trying to outbeat each other, they put these bigger yellow signs inIceland (R1: Single, Aged 18-25).

However, findings suggest further that exposure to these displays are sometimesinadvertent and accidental.

Effectiveness of promotional tactics. Summarily, participants exhibit very positiveattitude towards BOGOF, free samples, discounts and coupons in respect of thepurchase of low-involvement grocery products. These are mainly monetary salespromotion tools. On the other hand, these consumers are not keenly motivated by giftsand competitions (which are non-monetary in nature) as what could prompt them tobuy a particular brand of this set of products. Furthermore, the impact of advertisingand brand names as promotion stimuli on their purchase of these low-involvementgrocery products appears very minimal. Hence, these findings explain the relevance ofthe contextual factors associated with the purchase behaviour of this consumersegment.

7. DiscussionThis study suggests that low-income consumers rely on habitual purchasing for theselection of their low-involvement grocery products. These consumers repeatedlypurchase cheaper brand of the products which are most times stores own value-rangebrands. The repetitive purchase of these stores value-range brands could be linked tothe belief of these consumers that these brands function in similar ways like otherswhich are relatively expensive. These attitudes and behaviour in respect of the storesown value-range of these products appear to be closely related to the financialconstraints of the respondents, as they see the habit developed for this cheaperalternative as means of getting savings on their purchases.

Hawkins et al. (2004) suggest that habitual purchase decisions can be viewed fromtwo angles, one as brand loyal purchases and the other as repeat purchases. In the case ofbrand loyal purchases, the decision-maker (consumer) continues with the purchase of aparticular brand based on previous experience, having carefully selected the product inthe past and noticed that it offers the needed satisfaction. The repeat purchase categoryon the other hand is based on the belief that all products offer the same benefits and theone being chosen all the time is simply one of them. The behaviour of the low-incomewomen consumers in this study would seem to reflect the latter, in that they believe thatthe cheaper brands which they frequently buy offer the same benefits as others whichare more expensive. So, the question is why pay more? Further to the assertion that thebehaviour of the respondents is more akin to the repeat purchase as identified byHawkins et al., respondents of this study claim they will often take advantage of specialoffers on another brands, for the period of the offer. Thus, it would seem that these

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respondents are not actually committed to buying the stores own value-range brandsthat they buy repetitively; rather, their purchasing can be described as habitual ratherthan brand loyal. In view of the lack of commitment of this group of consumers to thestores own brands of these products, the findings suggests the incidence of cognitivedissonance as they continue to prove that the manufacturers do not really haveanything special compared to the one they often buy.

Further to the issue of cognitive dissonance inherent in the purchase behaviour ofthis group of consumers, despite the fact that the respondents in the present studyregard the stores own brands as the cheapest, they do not share the view that they areof lower quality compared to manufacturers brands, and do not perceive price to be anindication of quality for this group of products. This is in contrast with the view thatconsumers perceive stores brand as a riskier purchase alternative than nationalbrands (Mieres et al., 2006). Given the lack of total commitment of these consumers tothe stores own value-range products that they buy, their claim that there are nodifferences between the two categories of products to a certain extent reflects somedegree of cognitive dissonance. Hence, to reduce the dissonance, they tend torationalize their purchase decision of the value-range brands of the supermarkets thatthey bought. This present study therefore suggests that the low-income consumers arerather loyal and committed to the price offers and not the brand names.

Although a number of studies point to the usefulness of brands as a valuable assetto marketers and an enhancer to products in general (Keller, 1993; Prendergast andMarr, 1997; Seetharaman et al., 2001; OCass and Lim, 2002; Ind and Watt, 2006), theirinfluence on low-income women consumers with regard to low-involvement productsappears limited. It is however important to state that the disparity between thefindings of the present study and the huge extant literature which emphasise thesignificance of branding does not suggest that branding has lost its importance; ratherit shows that consumers are heterogeneous in their attitudes and behaviour towardsbranding and that low-income consumers may react to the brand names oflow-involvement products differently (compared to other segments). This iscorroborated to some extent by the claim that people in high- and low-income socialclass groups would behave differently (Coleman, 1960 cited in Williams, 2002).

Overall, the major explanation for the difference in the findings of the present studyand the previous studies is the low-income status of the members of this sample. It maybe that these women use such a belief as a way of justifying their decision for buyingthe cheaper brands, a decision which may actually be a direct result of their budgetlimitations. In fact, some of the respondents went further in that they claim thatthe stores own value-range brands which they buy actually perform better than themanufacturers brands which are more expensive. That said, the view of low-incomeconsumers about the superiority of stores brands to manufacturers brands appears tobe temporarily disrupted when other products are on special offers leading them toshift their purchasing to whichever is the cheapest. Thus, it appears that anycommitment is to the value for money and not the brand. This also suggests therelevance of cognitive dissonance in their viewpoint, as they tend to portray the storesbrand which they buy in very positive way compared to the manufacturers brand tojustify and rationalize their choice.

Moreover, the study indicates that respondents are sensitive to promotions inrespect of the products they purchase and often use such promotions as a guide in their

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decisions on which brand to buy. This finding is strongly supported in the extantliterature (Blattberg and Neslin, 1990; Raghubir et al., 2004) but also contradicts others(Kassarjian, 1981; Arnould et al., 2004). Blattberg and Neslin (1990) state that undercondition of low-involvement, a promotion can disrupt routinized repurchasebehaviour. On the other hand, it is claimed that for purchases of low-involvementproducts consumers often ignore promotions (Kassarjian, 1981; Arnould et al., 2004).One possible reason for the seeming disagreement between the findings of the presentstudy and the latter two views lies in the category of subjects of the present researchwho, as low-income consumers, may be more sensitive than other consumer segmentsto possible means of saving money.

This study suggests that low-income women consumers show a preference forBOGOF promotions over any other tools. This finding corroborates that of Gilbert andJackaria (2002) and Shi et al. (2005) who also found BOGOF to be the most popular ofthe various tools. But in general, respondents appear to be more receptive to monetary(value increasing) promotions rather than non-monetary promotions. It appears logicalto attribute this preference to low-income status of the subjects of the study.Nonetheless, this is also closely related to the contention of Shi et al. (2005) thatconsumers prefer special offers that are very simple to understand and need less inputon the part of the consumer. Indeed, as highlighted in the research objective, this studyenriches current knowledge in this academic domain as it illuminates issues associatedwith low-income consumers reactions to low-involvement grocery products.

8. ConclusionsAlthough the direction of argument in the literature implies that cognitive dissonanceis often associated with high-involvement purchases (Sweeney et al., 2000), the presentstudy cautions on such generalization and shows that this phenomenon could beequally applicable to purchases of low-involvement grocery products. This is largelydue to the fact that low-income women consumers who constitute the sample in thisstudy have considerable differences compared to other consumer groups and theseinteract to shape their salient beliefs, motivations, attitudes and behaviour.

As regards consumer involvement theory, the contribution of this study lies in thefact that it introduces some degree of distinctiveness to the way low-income consumersare conceptualised in respect of their involvement with grocery products. Previousstudies seem to treat all consumers as homogeneous regarding their reactions tolow-involvement grocery products. Such literature argues that consumers do not careenough about the products as there is not much at stake with their purchase(Kassarjian, 1981; Arnould et al., 2004). However, the current study argues thatthe attitudes, motivations, and behaviours of low-income women consumers differ dueto their financial constraints. Therefore, contextual factors associated with low-incomeshould be considered as paramount for the enhanced understanding of consumersattitudes, motivations and behaviour in respect of low-involvement grocery products.

A practical and applied contribution to marketing practitioners is also apparent asthis study is of significant value to the area of analysis, planning, implementation andcontrol of marketing programmes with specific relevance to segmentation, targetingand positioning. The findings of this study suggest the need for specific proactivepromotional actions towards targeting and satisfying the needs of low-income womenconsumers. For instance, this study suggests that monetary sales promotion and point

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of sale materials will be more effective as marketing communication tools thannon-monetary sales promotions for reaching out to this group of consumers.Nonetheless, it is important to approach this with due consideration given to theassociated ethical issues.

9. Limitations of the studyReflecting on this study, the gender difference between the respondents who are allfemale and the researcher who is a male may have somewhat made respondentsuncomfortable to express certain issues as freely as they might have done if theinterviewer/researcher was female. It is argued however that the respondents in thisstudy did not appear to be affected by this as is evident from the way in which theyfreely responded to the questions during the course of the interviews and the focusgroup discussion. Second, while efforts were made to probe the phenomena during theinterviews as effectively as possible, one can never be absolutely sure that respondentsactually do what they say they do. Nonetheless, this limitation was addressed byattending to the non-verbal cues of the respondents and by asking follow-up questionsto counter-check previously asked questions. Third, being a qualitative study, while theproduct of this research is enlightening, it is important to note that there is need forcaution in interpreting the study based on the limited extent to which it could begeneralized.

10. Suggestions for further researchFuture studies could explore this research further especially in relation to the corethemes that emerged in this present study and perhaps examine them in the context oflow-income males to compare the findings of this study. This will further illuminate theissue of whether gender difference impacts on the reported findings.

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Further reading

Clarke, K. and Belk, R.W. (1978), The effects of product involvement and task definition onanticipated consumer effort, in Keith, H.H. (Ed.), Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 5,Association for Consumer Research, Ann Arbor, MI, pp. 313-8.

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Sadarangani, P.H. and Gaur, S.S. (2002), Role of emotions and the moderating influence ofproduct involvement in web site effectiveness, Proceedings of the 14th BiennialConference, Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Century the Role of Informationand Telecommunications at ITS, Seoul, August.

About the authorAyantunji Gbadamosi is currently a Senior Lecturer of Marketing in the Business School of theUniversity of East London. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Business Administration with second classupper division and a MSc in Marketing at University of Lagos, Nigeria in 1995 and 1998,respectively. He also obtained his PhD in Marketing at the University of Salford (UK) in 2008.Prior to joining the academia, he has worked in the private sector of the Nigerian BusinessEnvironment as an Assistant Executive Officer in Charge of Sales of Pharmaceutical andElectrical products in a group of Companies in Lagos, Nigeria. He started his full-time academiccareer in 1999 at the University of Lagos, Nigeria where he taught various marketing-relatedcourses like principles of marketing, consumer behaviour, promotion and sales managementuntil March 2004 when he left for the UK in pursuit of his PhD degree in marketing. He has alsoworked as an Associate Lecturer in various educational institutions both in Nigeria and in theUK. In Nigeria, he taught at various institutions, which include the Nigerian Institute ofManagement, and the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (formerly known as TheChartered Institute of Marketing of Nigeria). And in the UK, he has taught marketing-relatedcourses at the University of Salford, Manchester Metropolitan University and Liverpool HopeUniversity. He is currently a full Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a Member ofthe Academy of Marketing, and a Member of the International Academy of African BusinessDevelopment. Ayantunji Gbadamosi can be contacted at: A.Gbadamosi@uel.ac.uk

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