Risk Indicators, Perceived Risk and Consumer's Choice of Information Sources

Summary Today consumer behavior is usually regarded as a problem-solving process. Consumers often make use of information in order to solve their buying problems. This paper reports a study where perceived risk is used both as an intervening variable and hypothetical construction between a range of indicator variables (experience, interest, general and specific self-confidence, income and education) and the dependant variables, sources of information. It was found-as expected-that buyers high in perceived risk were more inclined to use consumer dominated information sources, while those low in perceived risk made more use of marketer-dominated sources. Other results: Based on the two main dimensions in perceived risk, uncertainty and consequences, the predictive power of the indicator criteria examined could be described and explained.