How Good A Shopper Am I? Conceptualizing Teenage Girls' Perceived Shopping Competence

Academy of Marketing Science Review,  2006  by Palan, Kay M

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An evaluation of consumer socialization by John (1999) suggests that teens' understanding of concepts such as branding, pricing, and other related concepts is more sophisticated than that of younger children's. By the time children reach the reflective stage of consumer socialization (ages 11-16); they are believed to possess adult-like knowledge and abilities related to shopping (John 1999). Yet, simply because they appear to possess adult-like knowledge and skill does not mean they possess the same confidence as adult shoppers, nor does it mean that teens make use of the knowledge and skills they possess.

Existing research also indicates that there are distinct factors that influence teen decision-making style. In particular, girls were found to be more concerned with novelty and fashion than boys, and girls also reported that they were more concerned with value-for-money than boys, and that they shopped as a recreational activity, which they found to be enjoyable (Shim 1996). Haykto and Baker (2004) also indicate that girls do not see shopping as separate from entertainment.

Decision making styles of adolescents also have been examined by Sproles and Kendall (1986). They used a consumer style inventory, composed of eight basic mental approaches to consumer decision making, to construct consumer style profiles. The eight aspects of decision making included (1) high quality consciousness; (2) brand consciousness; (3) novelty-fashion consciousness; (4) hedonistic, recreational shopping consciousness; (5) price/value consciousness; (6) impulsiveness; (7) confusion from overchoice; and (8) brand loyalty tendencies. The degree to which each of these aspects typified an individual adolescent's decision making then became his or her consumer profile. This research was extended by Shim and Koh (1997) who used the consumer decision making style scales from the Sproles and Kendall study, in conjunction with socialization agents and their antecedents, to cluster analyze the responses of an adolescent sample. They identified three adolescent consumer decision making styles--value-maximizing recreational shopper, brand-maximizing non-utilitarian shopper, and apathetic shopper (Shim and Koh 1997). Value-maximizing recreational shoppers favored high quality, novelty, value in shopping, and exhibited hedonistic shopping characteristics. This group's decision making style was more influenced by parents. The brand-maximizing non-utilitarian shopper, in contrast to the other groups, was characterized by a tendency to use price as an indicator of quality, was more prone to impulsiveness, brand-loyal, and confused by too much choice. This group was more influenced by their peers. Apathetic shoppers were not concerned about product quality, fashion, or brand, nor were they brand-loyal or impulsive. Thus, they seemed to be truly uninterested in shopping and were not heavily influenced by either parents or peers.

While this body of research describes characteristics of teens' consumer decision styles, it does not address the effectiveness of these decision making styles nor how these styles specifically indicate shopping competence or lack thereof. In addition, even if we conclude, based on previous research, that teens have knowledge and understanding of shopping behaviors and routines, it still provides no indication of how competent they feel as shoppers. We begin to address this issue by discussing the concept of competence as found in psychology and marketing literatures.