| Summary: | In a buying situation , a consumer typically evaluates information about a set of brands.
As different brands focuses on different aspects of a product, consumers may have to rely
on possibly incomplete or incomparable information to make a choice. In a situation of
insufficient information, a consumer may try to infer the brands' performance on the
unknown attributes if there are still perceived information gaps on relevant evaluation
criteria. A choice is made only when sufficient information is gathered or inferred. The
purpose of our research is to find out how consumers make inferences about missing
information.
Our research proposes that consumers prefer to use between-brand processing to make
inferences rather than within-brand processing. We also propose that in choosing between
brands during purchases, consumers will evaluate the brand(s) less favourably as the
amount of missing information increases.
The experiment conducted involved a sample group and two sets of questionnaire. Half
the sample group was exposed to an experimental questionnaire and. the other half was
exposed to a control questionaire. 3 by 3 matrices were set up in the questionnaire with
one or two pieces of information missing in some of the matrices. Respondents were
required to infer values for the missing information. Data from the experiment was
processed using a software, and the findings were documented in this report.
|
|---|