Risk-reduction strategies in competitive convenience retail: How brand confusion can impact choice among existing similar alternatives

Jerry Yuwen Shiu

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2021, vol. 61, issue C

Abstract: Consumers tend to deliberate over their options by relying on risk reduction to facilitate the entire purchase journey. The present study was designed to be the first to investigate how brand confusion can impact consumers’ choice among existing similar alternatives with the use of risk-reduction strategies (i.e., decision postponement and inertia) in competitive convenience retail. The findings reflect two opposing strategies that consumers adapt to, that is, respond rationally or irrationally to brand confusion. Consequently, such a response either delays their purchase to search for additional external information or motivates them to depend on their behavioral inertia; whereas cognitive inertia completely relegates the decision-making process to the behavioral type. Taken together, the findings imply that rational decision-making could not function well to choose among existing similar alternatives. Accordingly, the study also provides some recommendations for marketers to reconnect cognitive inertia back to the process of decision making, and thereby encourage the acceptance of the new belief system.

Keywords: Brand confusion; Convenience retail; Decision postponement; Cognitive inertia; Behavioral inertia; Risk-reduction strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:61:y:2021:i:c:s0969698921001132

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102547

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