An exploratory analysis of low-income women consumers and their consumption of 'low involvement' grocery products

In view of the diversity that exists among consumers, this study argues the importance of focusing on just one sub-group of consumers. Therefore, the study aims to explore the attitudes, motivations, and purchase behaviour of low-income women consumers to 'low-involvement' products. More specifically, the adopted methodology comprises of a focus group discussion followed by thirty semi-structured interviews. Findings suggest that low-income women consumers engage in habitual purchasing and are not loyal to brands of grocery products. However, they often buy stores' own value-range brands as they believe that these products are similar to manufacturers' brands. They do not perceive price to be an indication of quality, rather they attribute basic differences between the stores' own value-range and manufacturers' brands as 'expensive packaging' and the popularity of the brand name. Value for money was 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 the promotions in different stores within their locality. The implications of the study are twofold. Firstly, this research challenges the common assumptions within the consumer behaviour literature that all grocery products are low-involvement. Hence, generalisation in consumer behaviour without due reference to the contextual factors identified among low-income women consumers provides a limited understanding of their decision making and purchase behaviour. Secondly, from a marketing perspective, the study supports the importance of segmentation/targeting with regard to the design of appropriate sales promotion techniques for targeting low-income consumers