The influence of customer decisionmaking styles on motor vehicle purchasing in South Africa

Abstract

In the business environment of the South African automotive industry, marketers are continuously challenged to reach the highest sales impact in order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. This can only be realised when marketers know their customers well enough to determine what they want and how they go about making the purchasing decision. The purpose of this research is to establish the extent to which the Customer Styles Inventory (CSI) model applies to consumer decision-making behaviours during the purchasing of motor vehicles in South Africa. The inventory includes factors such as price-value consciousness, price-quality consciousness, brand consciousness and loyalty, fashion consciousness, recreational shopping, impulsive buying and confusion by choice of product. The data for this study was collected using questionnaires and interviews. It was then statistically analysed using Descriptive Statistics, Frequency Distribution, Cross-Tabulation of Factors and Interpretive Statistics. A confirmatory result of all CSI elements was obtained showing what is applicable in the South African context. It was discovered that consumers of motor vehicles in this market are price-value, price-quality and brand conscious. They generally do not do recreational shopping for cars. It was interesting to note that the purchasing decision of motor vehicles is not driven by fashion in this market. Customers are also neither impulsive in their purchasing choices of motor vehicles nor are they confused by too much product choice. Owing to the competitiveness of the industry, the main recommendation to marketers of motor vehicles in the South African market is to thoroughly get to know who their customers are, what they want and how they go about making the purchasing decision. This will enable them to identify and profitably target groups of customers who will choose to align with them by action or referral