Magazine: Dimensions of consumer consciousness

In order to protect themselves, consumers don’t like to admit that marketing messages have a great impact on their shopping behaviour. Shoppers tend to describe themselves as conscious buyers, like someone that is aware of their consumer rights. But what do shoppers do if a problematic situation occurs? A questionnaire survey with 850 respondents has tried to answer this question (59.8 percent of participants were women, the average age was 41.5 years).Some of the findings are listed below.

Dr. Róbert Sándor Szűcs Róbert Sándor
professor
János Neumann University

1.If consumers get stale baked goods in their favourite bakery, 34.1 percent does nothing and don’t even mention it the next time they are buying there. 25.6 percent of respondents mention the problem when they return and only 10.3 percent go back instantly and make a complaint. 2.When two different prices are indicated for the same product, 61.7 percent claim they want the product at the lower price. 20.5 percent of consumers call the cashier’s attention to the problem, but they accept to pay the higher price too. 3.If shoppers get no receipt in a Chinese shop, 49.6 percent do nothing, 31 percent ask for the receipt and only 2.2 percent report it to the authorities.

The results of the research indicate that consumer consciousness is a much more complex thing that we would first think. Hungarian consumer consciousness looks a bit like an iceberg: 10-20 percent are above the water, while 80-90 percent are underwater. Based on the study we can’t say that there is a high level of consumer consciousness. //