Exploring consumers’ food-related decision-making style groups and their shopping behaviour

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop consumer typology, classify consumers by using food-related decision-making styles and link the resulting typology with consumer shopping behaviour. A modified Sproles and Kendall’s CSI instrument was used to identify decision-making styles in food-product context in Croatia. The data obtained from the survey was analysed using factor, cluster and ANOVA analyses. Three groups of consumers were identified: Recreational, Novelty-driven and Economic consumers. The study confirms that food-related consumers’ decision-making (CDM) styles can be used for market segmentation. Significant differences among groups were found for monthly food expenditure, expenditure at main retailers and expenditure on major trips. Marketers should take into account the characteristics of the identified groups while developing marketing programmes