Consumer behaviour in innovative products purchasing process

Nowadays, innovation has become one of the most important preconditions for a successful business and, consequently, also for successful development of national economy and economics. The aim of the article is to assess the factors influencing the behaviour of Latvian consumers, purchasing innovative packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages, based on theoretical aspects of consumer behaviour in innovative products purchasing process. As the result of the research, proposals were made for Latvian companies for improving innovative products marketing activities, commercialization and promotion of innovative products. A structured data collection was carried out using questionnaires, which resulted in a survey of 458 respondents from all over Latvia. The surveyed respondents by gender were 59.65% females and 40.35% males. The respondents were divided into 6 age groups, starting from 18 years old. The authors chose not to interrogate young people under the age of 18, assuming that they had no personal and independent income to purchase packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages. According to the findings, the authors allocated the main characteristics of respondents by their adaptation to innovative products: "innovators", "followers" and "slowly adapting". Under this research, the authors used the correlation analysis to estimate the relations between the level of income, age and gender of respondents and the type of consumer in relation to innovations was revealed. The higher income level is, the higher is the proportion of people who perceive themselves as innovators or quickly adapting in the field of packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages, and the lower income level is, the greater is the proportion of slowly adapting people. In general, the specificity of packaged food and nonalcoholic beverages is explained with the fact that consumers adapt to innovative products of this category much faster because it does not require large investments.