CHAPTER 1 - University of Exeter

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Chapter 1 - Introduction
apathetic shoppers once again are shoppers who do not like the experience,
convenience shoppers tend to “trade high prices for increased
convenience”(Williams et al., 1978, p.38), price shoppers “perceive that their
favourite store charges low prices” (Williams et al., 1978, p.38) and therefore they
continue to visit this store, and involved shoppers to whom convenient store location,
ease of shopping , and competitive prices are most important factors when choosing
a store.
Lesser and Hughes (1986) surveyed 6,808 people (across 17 different areas in
the US) in their research and came up with a number of different types of shoppers.
They identified inactive shoppers, active shoppers, service shoppers, traditional
shoppers, dedicated fringe shoppers, price shoppers, transitional shoppers,
convenience shoppers, coupon savers, innovators, and a miscellaneous category
called unclassified. They describe their different shopper types as follows. Inactive
shoppers have just as the label suggests very restricted interest in the activity, and
therefore they prefer a retail outlet that makes the experience as convenient as
possible. Active shoppers like the activity and they also enjoy just “shopping
around”. Their major concern is that prices are right. Service shoppers’ highest
priority when selecting a retail outlet is that they received excellent service from
employees, if not they quickly lose interest and search for another store. Even though
traditional shoppers have no requirements with regard to store type and price, they
still do not really enjoy shopping very much. While dedicated fringe shoppers are
described as having a need to be different, price shoppers are described as being
incredibly price conscious. Transitional shoppers do not like the shop around for low
prices; they rather make up their minds quickly once they have become interested in
a product (Lesser & Hughes, 1986). Since these researchers found the same