The identification of the consumer decision-making styles for crossfit training in South Africa
Date
2016
Authors
Geldenhuis, Dewald
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Abstract
The crossfit industry in South Africa is currently still in its infancy stages
compared to that of the United States of America, where it was conceptualised.
With the rapid growth currently experienced in this section of the fitness
industry, there has been a great influx of new business owners and
entrepreneurs, who have been enticed to enter this industry by the prospect of
a rapidly growing business.
Sinkovics, Leelapanyalert and Yamin (2010) wrote that an understanding of the
decision-making of consumers would be critical for marketing activities, market
segmentation and the development of marketing strategies. It is with this in
mind that the study set out to identify the crossfit consumer in South Africa in
order to profile and segment the consumer.
This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from
existing crossfit consumers in South Africa. The research instrument used was
the short version of the Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) developed by Sproles
and Kendall (1986). From the findings, four of the possible eight consumer
styles were identified and confirmed to be relevant to the crossfit consumer in
South Africa. These four consumer orientations were quality consciousness,
brand consciousness, fashion consciousness and price consciousness.
The most notable finding was that the crossfit consumer is not only quality
conscious but also value conscious. This implies that the buying decision made
by the consumer is rooted in a price and quality trade-off, with price only being a
small part of the overall consideration to purchase or not. Quality as a measure
plays a pivotal role for the consumer as they rely heavily on extrinsic factors to
not only decrease the risk associated with the purchase but also to measure the
perceived quality of the service that they are about to purchase.
Description
MBA Thesis
Keywords
Physical fitness,Physical education and training,Consumer behavior -- South Africa.