The Product Inventory Basket (PIB) Model to Measure Consumer Lifestyles and the Corresponding Consumption Behaviors in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Abstract

AIO and VALS2 are valuable models for categorizing consumers according to their lifestyles. Lifestyle is something that a given society perceives ordinals as high, medium, or low. But how much low or how much high? These models do not analyze this. In reality, how can we quantitatively or cardinally measure consumers' perceived lifestyles in a specific culture when they vary from culture to culture? AIO and VALS cannot quantitatively measure the levels of consumer lifestyles to present in a "Lifestyle Continuum" of scores ranging from 0% to 100%. The present study proposes a new model based on the "Product Inventory Basket." A Product Inventory Basket (PIB) is a list of some products that a consumer consumes in a given culture that can use to determine the lifestyle score of that consumer in particular culture adjusted for the perceived relative importance of those products. This study introduces the PIB model to quantitatively measure consumers' perceived lifestyles (expressed as scores ranging from 0% to 100%). Based on lifestyle scores, we can identify the consumer behaviours of different persons in a particular culture. For this purpose, the study measures the perceived relative lifestyles of different consumers in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. To identify the relevant products and their corresponding importance in Dhaka City, the responses of 600 randomly selected consumers have used from a prestigious mall, Jamuna Future Park, for convenience based on the proposed PIB model, first, we measure their relative lifestyles in terms of weighted scores ranging from 0% to 100%, and then their consumption behaviours are identified. These scores and the corresponding consumer behaviours may not be applicable in another culture. However, these analyses provide a guideline for measuring consumers' lifestyles with the calculated scores and their corresponding consumption behaviours in different cultures. The researchers have found that most consumers belong to the medium and low lifestyle segment with pre-planned shopping behaviour and are highly bargain-seekers. Nevertheless, consumers in the high lifestyle segment do not need to plan their shopping behaviour even when in the mall or a store and are not bargain-seekers. They are impulse buyers.