SEGMENTATION OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN

Abstract

The wine market was segmented into five useful segments, using a wine related lifestyle instrument that was developed to measure consumer attitudes toward wine shopping and consumption. The questionnaire was completed by 272 Gauteng residents. The data were subjected to principal component analysis, factor analysis and cluster analysis. The segments were tentatively named “social conformist, image seeking wine drinkers”, “conservative knowledgeable wine drinkers”, “experimenter, highly knowledgeable wine drinkers”, “unpretentious, knowledgeable wine drinkers”, and "confident, knowledgeable wine enthusiasts”. The instrument was useful in segmenting the market into segments based on attitudes, interests and opinions rather than other parameters such as demographics or wine knowledge. This confirms that the segmentation instrument may be useful, but needs refinement. The segments were also differentiated on total wine involvement, which incorporated the number of consumption situations, channels and criteria used in wine selection. Wine general knowledge was not a useful segment differentiator.