CONSUMER IDENTITY INVENTORY: A NEW TOOL FOR SEGMENTING ONLINE CONSUMERS?

Abstract

Individuals' sense of who they are as consumers influence their consumption behaviors. In this context, consumer identity may be used as an alternative segmentation criterion that may help to explain the variation in consumption patterns. This study aims to offer a Consumer Identity Inventory (CSI) to measure consumption-specific identities and investigate the efficiency of an approach of using those identities to segment the online buyers. In this context, we conducted two studies in Turkey. In the first study, we explored 60 consumer identities through Twenty-Statement-Test (TST) that is conducted on 186 participants. Then, CSI was formed based on the findings of TST. In the second study, we examined the relationships between consumer identities and online buying tendency using the data collected from 343 participants through a survey. Results revealed 19 consumer identities that promote online buying and 19 identities that discourage online buying. Findings are discussed in detail, implications for future research and suggestions for online retailers were provided. (C) 2019 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.uk