Professional Documents
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Customer Behaviour
Customer Behaviour
1561/1700000036
Consumers’ Purchase
Intentions and their
Behavior
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
Consumers’ Purchase
Intentions and their
Behavior
Vicki Morwitz
Boston – Delft
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
ISBN: 978-1-60198-881-2
c 2014 V. Morwitz
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Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
Editor-in-Chief:
Jehoshua Eliashberg
University of Pennsylvania
Co-Editors
Bernd Schmitt
Columbia University
Olivier Toubia
Columbia University
Editors
David Bell, University of Pennsylvania
Gerrit van Bruggen, Erasmus University
Amitava Chattapadhyah, INSEAD
Pradeep Chintagunta, University of Chicago
Dawn Iacobucci, Vanderbilt University
Raj Ragunathan, University of Texas, Austin
J. Miguel Villas-Boas, University of California, Berkeley
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
Editorial Scope
Vicki Morwitz
Abstract
Purchase intentions are frequently measured and used by marketing
managers as an input for decisions about new and existing products and
services. Purchase intentions are correlated and predict future sales, but
do so imperfectly. I review and summarize research on the relationship
between purchase intentions and sales that has been conducted over
the past 60 years. This review offers insights into how best to measure
purchase intentions, how to forecast sales from purchase intentions mea-
sures, and why purchase intentions do not always translate into sales.
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
Contents
1 Introduction 1
vii
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6 General Discussion 36
References 41
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1
Introduction
1
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
2 Introduction
their products, and to assess how their marketing actions will impact
those future sales.
While managers’ widespread use of purchase intentions measures
suggests that they believe that they are good proxies for what con-
sumers will do in the marketplace, we have long known that they are
correlated with but are imperfect predictors of future consumer behav-
ior (Namias, 1959). Consumers often have every intention of purchas-
ing a product in a given time interval, for example, they may plan to
replace their current car with a new one within the next six months, but
they may fail to fulfill their intentions. This may happen because their
personal circumstances changed, for example, if they lost their job, or
their home required a major repair, and therefore they no longer had
enough money to purchase a new car. It could also happen because of
marketer-related or more general economic reasons, for example, if a
desired new model car’s launch was delayed, if its quality ratings were
lower than expected upon launch, or if interest rates increased. On
the other hand, though the evidence shows it is less likely to happen
(Sheeran, 2007), there will also be consumers, who when asked to indi-
cate their purchase intentions, have no intention of buying a new car
in the next six months, but who end up doing so. This could happen,
for example, if the consumer’s current car suddenly broke down or was
destroyed in a car accident, or if the consumer got a new job or a raise
and decided because of those reasons to purchase a car.
Given purchase intentions are correlated with but are imperfect
measures of consumers’ subsequent purchase behavior, marketing man-
agers need to know when best to rely on them and how best to use
them. To address this, I review the relevant literature on purchase
intentions in marketing, and more generally on the intentions–behavior
relationship in social psychology, since purchase intentions are a par-
ticular form of the more general construct of intentions. I first discuss
the importance of purchase intentions to marketing managers. I then
focus on reviewing the literature that provides an understanding of how
strong is the relationship between purchase intentions and purchas-
ing, (b) what factors influence the strength of the relationship between
purchase intentions and purchasing, and (c) how a marketing manager
should best use purchase intentions to forecast future sales.
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1700000036
References
41
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42 References
References 43
44 References
References 45
46 References
References 47
48 References
References 49