The Influence Of Resource Availability On Consumer Information Processing Strategy

There are significant differences in buying behavior and information processing between buying a car and buying a lovely rubber band.The differences mainly reflect in the consumer resource and information processing strategy.Scarcity of resources and consumer rationality are the basic assumptions of economics.In fact,resources are not always scarce and consumers can perceive whether their resource availability is scarce or abundant.Consumers have bounded rationality.The interaction between consumer information processing systems and shopping situations shapes the consumer behavior.The information processing strategy is the most important category in the information processing system theory.So this paper discusses about the possible theoretical connection between resource availability and information processing strategy,that resource availability may affect the consumers' preference of different processing strategy.Money and time are both resource types.This article focuses on the availability of money resources.Previous studies have suggested that there are two types of consumer information processing strategies:attribute-based information processing strategy and alternative-based information processing strategy.The attribute-based information processing strategy is the strategy that compares different options one by one according to each attribute of the product.The alternative-based information processing strategy is to derive an overall value of each alternative,and then compares the overall value of different alternatives to determine the best one.This paper mainly talks about whether different levels of resource availability will affect consumer's choice of information processing strategy,as well as the possible explanation mechanism and influencing factors.The following conclusions are made after theoretical deduction and three experiments.Resource availability can affect consumer information processing strategy.When resources are scarce,consumers tend to use attribute-based processing strategy.Conversely,when resources are abundant,consumers are more inclined to use alternative-based processing strategy.The main mechanism behind this is the processing mode.When resources are scarce,consumers' decision-making processes need more thinking and weighing.They will pay more attention to the concept of money.Therefore,they start analytical processing mode and process information based on attributes.When resources are abundant,consumer decision-making processes consume few cognitive resources,so an intuitive processing mode is initiated to process information based on alternatives.The difference in the level of prior knowledge will affect the role of resource availability in the processing of consumer information.When prior knowledge is limited,consumers with scarce or abundant resources all start the analytic process mode,which tends to attribute-based processing strategy.When the knowledge is abundant,consu:mers with scarce money resources tend to use the attribute-based processing strategy.But this tendency decreases conpared to limited knowledge situation Consumers with abundant money resources tend to rely on alternative-based processing strategy as usualThe scarcity or abundance of money resources is an economic condition that consumers often encounter.Consumers who use different information processing strategies have different ways of assessing product value,and merchants' promotional methods should also change to cater to consumers' decision-making process.The results of this article also have important reference significance for marketing practice.When consumers process information are based on attributes,the merchant should highlight the attributes of the product's most significant advantages and inspire the consumer's comparison process;when the consumer processes information are based on alternatives,the merchant can optimize the visual display and shopping environment to promote sales.