This study empirically investigated into the multidimensional structure of habitual buying behavior by reestablishing the concept of the behavior based on the essential characteristics of habit and approaching the matter in terms of embedded cogniti ...
This study empirically investigated into the multidimensional structure of habitual buying behavior by reestablishing the concept of the behavior based on the essential characteristics of habit and approaching the matter in terms of embedded cognition. Also, this study focused on identifying the differential influence of consumer responses based on the types of habitual purchase, and verified the moderating effect of personal characteristics. The results of the research can be summarized as follows.
In the first stage, in-depth interview was carried out based on phenomenological method to examine the various types of consumers' habitual buying behavior. As a result, habitual buying behavior can be divided into four types of value-oriented habitual purchase, pure habitual purchase, spurious habitual purchase, and quasi-habitual purchase depending on the contextual dependence(high/low) and behavior value(high/low). First, when there is high dependency on specific situations and when the corresponding behavior has enough value to invest cognitive efforts, it was found that consumers displayed value-oriented habitual purchase. This type displays behavior of automatically purchasing a specific product when a situational condition is given, and this is a type where product consumption behavior is highly involved. Second, when there is high dependency on specific situations and when the corresponding behavior does not have enough value to invest cognitive efforts, it was found that consumers displayed pure habitual purchase. This is the type that has the most active automatic cognition process that minimizes cognitive efforts when in a similar situational relationship. Third, when there is low dependency on specific situations and when the corresponding behavior has enough value to invest cognitive efforts, it was found that consumers displayed spurious habitual purchase. This type shows repetitive buying tendency for a particular product, but it aims for diversity based on individual value. Finally, when there is low dependency on specific situations and when the corresponding behavior does not have enough value to invest cognitive efforts, it was found that consumers displayed quasi-habitual purchase. This type is similar to pure habitual purchase, but compared to pure habitual purchase, it has low habit intensity for a specific product, and exhibits repetitive buying tendency for multiple related products.
In the second stage, an experiment was conducted to verify the differential influence of consumer responses based on the types of habitual purchase, and verified the moderating effect of price sensitivity and uncertainty avoidance. As a result, value-oriented and pure habitual purchase consumers showed higher continuous use intention compared with spurious and quasi-habitual purchase consumers. On the contrary, value-oriented and pure habitual purchase consumers showed lower switching purchase intention compared with spurious and quasi-habitual purchase consumers. Upon verifying the moderating effect of price sensitivity and uncertainty avoidance, it was found that the moderating effect of price sensitivity depending on types of habitual buying behavior is significant, and the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance is partially significant. Specifically, it was found that when price sensitive was lower, the difference in continuous use intention of pure habitual purchase consumers and spurious habitual purchase consumers was higher. Similarly, when price sensitivity was lower, it was found that the difference of switching purchase intention of value-oriented habitual purchase consumers and quasi-habitual purchase consumers was higher. Also, when uncertainty avoidance was lower, the difference of switching purchase intention of value-oriented habitual purchase consumers and quasi-habitual purchase consumers was higher. On the contrary, the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance for continuous use intention was not significant. Based on these results, the study provided valuable theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.