Can consumers be racist?: an investigation of the effect of consumer racism on product purchase

Purpose – Consumer racism (CR) is a highly relevant issue to societies such as Australia and one which has, up until now, been somewhat neglected by marketers. This paper aims to investigate this relatively “new” construct and its impact on product evaluation and subsequent willingness to buy cross‐ethnic products amongst Australian consumers. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a quasi‐experiment method. Data were collected from an intercept sample of 212 Australian consumers via personal interviews. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics, and hypotheses were tested using regression analysis and two‐way between groups ANOVA. Findings – The results provide evidence that higher levels of CR translate into more negative evaluations of product quality which, in turn, decrease willingness to buy products perceived as originating from the ethnic minority. Further, regardless of the importance of product outcome, CR has a consistent negative effect on product evaluation and willingness to buy amongst Australian consumers. Research limitations/implications – Future research could be expanded into other ethnic groups and other countries, and could include other moderators such as level of interaction. CR construct can also be examined in service contexts. Originality/value – The major contributions of the study are the validation of the CR construct and the findings about the impact of it on consumers' willingness to buy cross‐ethnic products via product evaluations in the Australian context.Sally Rao Hill, Katherine Paphiti