Abstract
The complexities in emerging market online shopping environments necessitate critiquing and reviewing of existing consumer decision-making (CDM) frameworks developed using traditional, linear CDM models and seemingly homogenous consumers. Understanding changing CDM is critical to responding to the challenges emerging market consumers face against the realities of the digital divide. These challenges include: (1) access to data for internet usage varies due to high data costs and inequitable telecommunications infrastructure quality; (2) diverse consumer perceptions of involvement in purchase decisions, which influence the online CDM process; (3) heterogenous emerging market consumer characteristics, which influence how consumers progress through the online CDM process; and (4) existing linear online CDM models do not adequately consider contemporary emerging market and digital consumers’ needs.
A neo-evolutionist world view supported the study’s meta-theoretical framework. Neo-evolutionism argues that societies (emerging markets) evolve based on the changing market environments (variations in data access and involvement) that cause digital consumers to adapt. The framework for an integrated methodology (FraIM) proposes a novel, pragmatic approach to undertaking research. The FraIM was adopted in this study due to the neo-evolutionist world view being grounded in consumer behaviour as well as traditional and online CDM theories; the complexities mentioned above; and this study’s multifaceted research question – how does data access affect consumers’ online CDM for high- and low-involvement purchases in emerging markets?
By applying the FraIM, this study is divided into four parts. Part 1 contextualises the study towards emerging markets and complexities facing online CDM based on data access and types of purchase decision involvement. Part 2 sets out the meta-theoretical framework and the extant traditional and online consumer behaviour and CDM theories and models to identify possible impediments from an emerging market perspective. Part 3 presents the empirical research design and related findings from two sequential methodological phases. Phase one explored emerging market digital consumers’ perceptions of data access and involvement in online purchase behaviour. Phase two explored the online CDM process for high- and low-involvement purchases in the context of limited and sufficient access to data in an emerging market. Over the two phases, 12 virtual focus group discussions were used to collect data based on non-probability, purposive sampling. Phase one in Part 3 demonstrated that data access is imperative to consumers’ ability
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to engage non-linearly in online CDM stages to reduce perceived risks. Sufficient data access facilitates a more effective, seamless, fluid online CDM process. This is because consumers can spend more time at each stage and alternate between stages, as opposed to limited data access, which restricts the non-linear fluidity between online CDM stages that consumers undertake when making an online purchase decision. Moreover, phase two in Part 3 revealed that high- and low-involvement purchase decisions remain subjectively formed. This finding challenges existing literature and defined views of product involvement.
Based on the theoretical (Parts 1 and 2) and empirical (Part 3) findings underscoring the complexities of online CDM in an emerging market, Part 4 comprises the development of a conceptual framework for online CDM. The online CDM conceptual framework developed in this study, first, positions online CDM uniquely as a fluid, non-linear, multifaceted process contributing substantively to the field of consumer behaviour and CDM. Second, this study’s conceptual framework contributes by distinguishing online CDM processes in an emerging market context, specifically where access to data and involvement are realities in online purchasing. Third, using the FraIM methodologically contributes to extending its application to the marketing discipline, emphasising the necessity for pragmatic integrated approaches for research inquiry. Based on the conceptual framework for online CDM in an emerging market, recommendations for online retailers and marketers include: (1) recognising the unique emerging market digital consumer; (2) adapting current marketing strategies to align with the realities of data access and product involvement; and (3) operationally including digital solutions, such as using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data codes, WhatsApp Business, offering various payment and tracking options, immediate call to action, night-time promotions, “lite” apps, and chatbots to cater to the multidimensional, non-linear online CDM process.