Consumer Characteristics Associated with Dealing: An Empirical Example

The targeting of consumer deals, as well as our understanding of consumer behavior, would be enhanced by knowledge of what consumer characteristics relate systematically to deal purchasing activities in a product market. This study examines possible relationships between a housewife's dealing activity in a product class (dentifrice) and certain of her social-psychological and purchasing characteristics. Nearly one billion dollars was spent for coupons distributed by direct mail, magazines, and newspapers, in 1960 5. To this must be added the cost of price-off labels, premium packs, and other consumer deals. Yet in spite of its economic significance, there has been little study of market response to dealing. Notable exceptions are 2, 3, 6. Two previous studies of dealing are relevant to this one. Webster 6 analyzed the relationship between a family's deal proneness index and 11 socioeconomic and 34 purchasing characteristics. The deal proneness index reflected a family's propensity to deal more or less than expected in a product class. He found brand loyalty (proportion of purchases concentrated on the favorite brand) to be negatively related to deal proneness. Of the socioeconomic variables, only age of housewife related significantly to deal proneness. Similarly, Massy and Frank 3, in distributed lag regressions of weekly price and dealing on a brand's market share, found that brand loyal consumers were less responsive to dealing than were nonloyal consumers. The picture that emerges from the limited empirical work to date is that brand loyalty and dealing tend to be inversely related and that most traditional socioeconomic measures are not useful predictors of dealing activity. THE VARIABLES