Communication

Journal of Macromarketing
1-8
Macromarketing Metrics of Consumer ª The Author(s) 2020
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Well-Being: An Update DOI: 10.1177/0276146720968096
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M. Joseph Sirgy1

Abstract
This commentary updates much of the research related to the various constructs and metrics of consumer well-being. Specifically,
I review the research to date concerning several conceptualizations and metrics of consumer well-being from both public and
academic sectors. Public sector metrics include Cost of Living, Total Consumption Expenditure, Consumer Complaint, and
Quality. Selected contributions to consumer well-being metrics from the academic sector include Shopping Satisfaction, Shopping
Well-Being, Possession Satisfaction, Acquisition/Possession Satisfaction, Consumption Life Cycle, Community, Need Satisfaction,
Perceived Value in Life, and Bottom-up Spillover. I then provide some thoughts about how these metrics can be improved and
ideas that may spur future research. In doing so, I address issues related to construct validity to public sector metrics by
demonstrating association with human development measures. Metrics from the academic sector can also be improved by testing
association with newly established constructs of well-being (e.g., eudaimonia, social well-being) and introducing moderating effects
of individual differences (e.g., consumer involvement, consumer lifestyle) as well as product-related differences (e.g., experiential
versus material consumption; marketplace activities related to luxury versus nonluxury goods and services; and products
beneficial to society versus “sin” products).

Keywords
consumer well-being, consumer happiness, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, consumer welfare, consumer satisfaction

Introduction Rangaswamy 2003; Szymanski and Henard 2001). With

As many of us know, macromarketing is a field of study deal-
ing with the interface of marketing and society. An important
element of this interface is the concept of consumer well-being
(e.g., Leong et al. 2016; Pancer and Handelman 2012; Sirgy
2001; Sirgy and Lee 2006). Exactly, what is consumer well-
being? Why is this concept important? What are the metrics
that have been developed to date to capture consumer well-
being? Can these metrics be improved? These are some ques-
tions I attempt to answer in this commentary.
What is Consumer Well-Being and Why is it
Important?
A good way to define consumer well-being is to compare it
with customer satisfaction. Traditional marketers (i.e.,
“micromarketers”) have long embraced customer satisfaction
as the end goal of marketing practice (Webster 1988). This is
the essence of the “marketing concept.” Marketing action
should enhance customer satisfaction because doing so serves
to enhance the firm’s bottom line (long-term sales and profit).
Much research has demonstrated that customer satisfaction is
directly and indirectly related customer loyalty, repeat sales,
and positive word-of-mouth communications (e.g., Gronholdt,
Martensen, and Kristensen 2000; Shankar, Smith, and
respect to conceptualizations and metrics of customer satisfac-
tion, I recommend the reader to examine Richard Oliver’s book
on Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer
(Oliver 1997, 2009). In contrast, one can argue that consumer
well-being is the ultimate goal of marketing from a macromar-
keting perspective (e.g., Hunt, 2012; Kotler and Levy 1969;
Layton, 2007; Mittelstaedt et al., 2014, 2015; Peterson,
2012a, 2012b; Shapiro, Tadajewski, and Shultz 2009; Sirgy
2001; Wilkie and Moore, 2006). Consumer well-being reflects
a meta-level concept of societal welfare. In other words, all the
conceptualizations and measures of consumer well-being dis-
cussed in this commentary are grounded on the explicit
assumption that high levels of consumer well-being lead to
higher levels of consumer quality of life — higher levels of
well-being in the form of consumer happiness, life satisfaction,
overall happiness with life, as well as societal welfare.
1
Department of Marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
(Virginia Tech), USA; & WorkWell Research Unit, North West University,
Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa
Corresponding Author:
M. Joseph Sirgy, Department of Marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State
University, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.
Email: sirgy@vt.edu
2 Journal of Macromarketing XX(X)
Table 1. Various Conceptualizations and Metrics of Consumer Well-
Being.
Metrics from the Metrics from the
Public Sector Academic Sector
 Cost of Living Index  Shopping Satisfaction
 Total Consumption  Shopping Well-Being
Expenditure Index  Possession Satisfaction
 Consumer Complaint  Acquisition/Possession
 Quality Satisfaction
 Consumption Life Cycle
 Community
 Need Satisfaction
 Perceived Value in Life
 Bottom-up Spillover
Metrics of Consumer Well-Being based on
Various Conceptualizations
My colleague, Dong-Jin Lee, and I already identified and dis-
cussed several conceptualizations and metrics of consumer
well-being from both public and academic sectors (see Lee and
Sirgy 2012; Sirgy and Lee 2006). My attempt here is to review
and update this discussion. Metrics of consumer well-being
from the public sector include contributions from the business
community, NGOs, and government agencies. In contrast, aca-
demic contributions involve metrics developed by academi-
cians and published in academic journals. These metrics are
captured in Table 1.
Consumer Well-Being Metrics from the
Public Sector
I will describe in this section several important metrics estab-
lished in the public sector. These include Cost of Living, Total
Consumption Expenditure, Consumer Complaint, and Quality.
With respect to the Cost of Living metric, we have the very
popular Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI measures
changes in the cost of living over time – specifically changes
in prices of goods and services at the national level over time
(http//:www.bls.gov/cpi/home). The macromarketing assump-
tion here is that increases in prices of goods and services (i.e.,
inflation) decrease consumer well-being in purchases of goods
and services – inflated prices make the purchase of goods and
services unaffordable (Samli 2003).
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP
1998) has employed the Total Consumption Expenditure Index
(TCEI). The TCEI is a composite of consumption of cars, paper
products, telephone connections, electricity, total energy, meat,
fish, and cereals. Thus, a TCEI score of a country refers to the
summary of all expenses across various expenditure categories.
The goal is to identity and measure equities and inequities in
the consumption of goods and services that meet basic needs.
The UNDP defines quality of life in terms of satisfaction of
basic needs and equity in basic need satisfaction among differ-
ent population segments. The public policy implication is that
countries should strive to increase or decrease consumption of
goods and services to satisfy basic needs as a direct function of
a ratio of total consumption expenditures and size of population
(Ruger 2008).
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) of the U.S. developed a
consumer well-being metric based on Complaint data (http://
www.thelocalbbb.com). Consumers call or write to the BBB
and register a complaint against a company for problems
related to the company’s goods or services. Consumer com-
plaints directed at specific companies and brands are aggre-
gated across all BBB communities. A high level of
complaints in relation to a specific company or brand repre-
sents lower levels of consumer well-being — specific to that
company and brand.
Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org), a monthly
publication of the Consumer Union, provides expert assess-
ments of Quality for a variety of goods and services. Common
dimensions of quality include experts’ ratings of product relia-
bility, durability, and safety; as well as owner satisfaction rat-
ings. A high level of positive assessment for a specific product
represents a higher level of consumer well-being.
Consumer Well-Being Metrics from the
Academic Sector
Contributions to consumer well-being metrics from the aca-
demic sector include Shopping Satisfaction, Shopping
Well-Being, Possession Satisfaction, Acquisition/Possession
Satisfaction, Consumption Life Cycle, Community, Need
Satisfaction, Perceived Value in Life, and Bottom-up Spillover
(see Table 1).
With respect to the Shopping Satisfaction metric, H. Lee
Meadow and I (Meadow and Sirgy 2008) developed the Over-
all Consumer Satisfaction-Composite (OCSC). This index is
based on consumers’ expressed satisfaction with local retail
institutions in purchasing food, housing, household operations,
household furnishings, clothing and accessories, personal care,
medical care, recreation, transportation, and education. The
index was successfully correlated with measures of subjective
well-being.
Building on the concept of shopping satisfaction and its
metric, my colleagues and I developed a new metric related
to Shopping Well-Being (Ekici et al. 2018; Lee et al. 2014;
Sirgy, Lee, and Yu 2020). The metric underlying Shopping
Well-Being involves two dimensions: Positive beliefs regard-
ing the degree to which shopping contributes to quality of life,
and negative beliefs related to the degree to which shopping
activities result in overspending time, effort, and money. The
metric was validated by demonstrating the two dimensions are
significant predictors of life satisfaction (life satisfaction is a
positive function of the former dimension and negative in rela-
tion to the latter dimension).
Andrews and Withey (1976) measured Material Possession
Satisfaction (referred to as the Consumer Index) in terms of
people’s feelings about transportation and access to work and
shopping, the medical services in their area, and the goods and
Sirgy
services they can get when they buy in their area — things like
food, appliances and clothes. Nakano, MacDonald, and
Douthitt (1995) have used the same concept to develop a mea-
sure of consumer well-being. The measure focuses on consu-
mers’ overall satisfaction with their material possessions and
standard of living. The measure involves two survey items:
“How do you feel about your standard of living — the things
you have like housing, car, furniture, recreation, and the like?”
and “How do you feel about the extent to which your physical
needs are met?” Consumer well-being is computed as a com-
posite of these two items. Additionally, my colleagues and I
(Sirgy et al. 1998) developed a comparable measure based on
possession satisfaction of economic goods. Data provided con-
struct validation by demonstrating that (1) satisfaction with
material possessions influences overall life satisfaction; (2) this
effect is moderated by materialism (i.e., emotional involve-
ment with material possessions) – satisfaction with material
possessions more strongly influences life satisfaction for mate-
rialistic than for non-materialistic consumers; and (3) satisfac-
tion with material possessions is influenced by materialism –
those who are materialistic are more likely to be dissatisfied
with their possessions because they have high possession
expectations. Smits and Steendijk (2015) developed the Inter-
national Wealth Index (IWI) using similar reasoning. House-
holds with an IWI value of 100 have a TV, fridge, phone, car,
a house with piped drinking water, electricity, a flush toilet,
good quality floor material, and 3þ rooms. Households with a
value of 0, on the other extreme, own none of the above items,
have a floor of earth or dung, have none (or poor) quality
toilet, no electricity, only one room, and water from an unpro-
tected source. Also see other comparable measures such as
Arias and De Vos (1996), and Christoph (2010); also see Sirgy
(2018, 2019) for an extensive discussion of the concept of
material well-being, its metrics, as well as antecedents and
consequences.
Day (1978, 1987) and Leelakulthanit, Day, and Walters
(1991) conceptualized the consumer life domain as having two
dimensions: Acquisition and Possession of consumer goods
and services. The acquisition dimension refers to shopping
experiences. Examples include consumer satisfaction with
assortment, quality, and price of goods available in local stores;
the attractiveness of the local stores; the courtesy and helpful-
ness of personnel in the local stores; and after-purchase service
provided by the local stores (e.g., warranty policies, return
policies). In contrast, the possession dimension focuses on
experiences related to material possessions (e.g., ownership
of house/apartment, furniture, car/truck, clothing/accessories,
savings, etc.).
With respect to Consumption Life Cycle, my colleagues and
I (Lee et al. 2002; Sirgy et al. 2008) developed a consumer
well-being metric based on the notion that consumer satisfac-
tion with varied marketplace experiences plays an important
role in life satisfaction (or quality of life). These experiences
involve shopping for goods and services in the local area, prod-
uct ownership, actual use of goods and services, repair and
servicing of consumer durables, and disposal of consumer
3
durables (cf. Durgee and Agopian 2018). The Consumption
Life Cycle metric has been adapted in other product-specific
contexts such as personal transportation and housing. Specifi-
cally, Sirgy and Lee (2003) found that consumers’ perceived
quality-of-life impact of current vehicles is largely determined
by satisfaction with purchase, preparation for personal use,
ownership, use, and maintenance (i.e., various experiences
across the consumption life cycle with transportation vehicles)
(cf. Grzeskowiak and Sirgy 2007). Similarly, in relation to
housing, Grzeskowiak et al. (2006) developed a housing
well-being metric guided by the notion that home resident’s
cumulative positive and negative affect associated with house
purchase, use, maintenance, ownership, and selling play an
important role in consumers’ overall well-being.
Additionally, my colleagues and I (Sirgy et al. 2000, 2010a;
Sirgy and Cornwell 2001) developed yet another metric based
on the notion that consumer well-being is a direct function of
Community residents’ satisfaction with a variety of retail and
service establishments in the local area – banking/savings
services, insurance services, taxi/private transportation, restau-
rants/night clubs, department stores, drug stores/supermarkets,
specialty stores, healthcare services, telephone services, elec-
tricity services, gas/oil services, real estate services, home
repair services, day care services, nursing homes/retirement
community-type services, private schools, spectator sports,
TV stations, radio stations, local newspaper, automobile care
services, realtors, investment services, legal services, and
entertainment.
The Need Satisfaction metric (Sirgy et al. 2010b) is based on
need hierarchy theory. The basic premise of this metric is that
consumer goods and services that serve to meet the full spec-
trum of human development needs should be rated highly in
terms of consumer well-being, compared to goods and services
that satisfy only a small subset of needs. This metric was also
employed in the context of personal transportation (Sirgy, Lee,
and Kressman 2006). Similarly, the measure is based on the
notion that the welfare of consumers of personal transportation
vehicles is enhanced when the consumption of the vehicle
meets the full spectrum of human developmental needs (i.e.,
safety, economic, family, social, esteem, actualization, knowl-
edge, and aesthetics needs).
The Perceived Value in Life was used in a macromarketing
setting to capture consumer well-being of an entire industry or
sector, such as the Internet (Sirgy, Lee, and Bae 2006). Specif-
ically, the internet well-being is based on the theoretical notion
that the perception of the overall impact of the Internet on users
of the Internet is determined by their perceptions of the impact
of the Internet in their life domains such as consumer life, work
life, leisure life, social life, education life, community life,
sensual life, among others. In turn, the perception of impact
of the Internet in a life domain (e.g., consumer life, work life) is
determined by perceptions of benefits and costs of the Internet
within that domain. Thus, the Internet well-being measure is a
composite of value perception of consumers across various life
domains. A high level of value perception represents a high
level of Internet well-being. A similar measure was developed
4 Journal of Macromarketing XX(X)
in relation to other products such as the use of mobile phones
(e.g., Sirgy et al. 2007).
Metrics involving the Bottom-up Spillover concept is based
on the notion of a satisfaction hierarchy – and that positive and
negative affect spillover from concrete events to life domains
(e.g., work life, leisure life, family life, social life, love life) to
influence overall life satisfaction. Thus, specific events housed
in a life domain may affect life satisfaction through a “bottom-
up spillover” of affect (Sirgy 2012). Several consumer well-
being measures in healthcare and travel and tourism were
developed guided by the Bottom-up Spillover concept. In rela-
tion to healthcare, colleagues and I (Rahtz and Sirgy 2000;
Rahtz, Sirgy, and Lee 2004) developed a consumer well-
being metric based on the assumption that community resi-
dents’ satisfaction with healthcare services (available within
their community) influences their sense of community well-
being and overall life satisfaction. In addition, in hospital con-
text, colleagues and I (Sirgy, Hansen, and Littlefield 1994)
were able to demonstrate bottom-up spillover from hospital
satisfaction to community healthcare satisfaction, satisfaction
with personal health, and overall life satisfaction. In relation to
travel and tourism services, again, colleagues and I (Neal,
Sirgy, and Uysal 1999, 2004; Neal, Uysal, and Sirgy 2007)
developed a metric of consumer well-being based on Bottom-
Up Spillover effects. Specifically, overall life satisfaction is
theorized to derive from two sources of satisfaction, namely
satisfaction with non-leisure life domains and satisfaction with
leisure life. Satisfaction with leisure life is derived from satis-
faction with leisure experiences that take place at home and
satisfaction with travel/tourism experiences. Satisfaction with
travel/tourism experiences results from satisfaction with trip
reflections of the traveler (e.g., what the traveler remembers
regarding perceived freedom from control, perceived freedom
from work, involvement, arousal, mastery, and spontaneity
experienced during the trip) and satisfaction with travel/tour-
ism services. Satisfaction with travel/tourism services is further
derived from satisfaction with the service aspects of travel/
tourism phases—pre-trip services, en-route services, destina-
tion services, and return-trip services.
Room for Improvement
Can the existing metrics of consumer well-being be
improved? The answer is resoundingly yes. Here are some
suggestions. First, let us focus on the consumer well-being
metrics available in the public sector (metrics provided and
maintained by the business community, NGOs, and govern-
ment agencies) such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) main-
tained by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Total
Consumption Expenditure Index as maintained by the United
Nations Development Programme, the Consumer Complaint
data base as maintained by the Better Business Bureau in the
U.S., and Quality ratings as maintained by the Consumer
Union and published in the Consumer Reports periodical.
We take it for granted that these metrics are important because
they purport to capture what we may intuitively feel important
aspects of consumer well-being. If so, let us see if we can
prove it. One can validate these popular metrics by developing
a theoretical network of concepts related to the constructs
underlying the metrics and make every attempt possible to
empirically demonstrate the relationships among the concepts.
Doing so provides a measure of construct validity of these
popular metrics. For example, changes in CPI at the country
level can be correlated with as measures of quality-of-life at
the societal level such as the United Nations’ Human Devel-
opment Index (HDI; http://hdr.undp.org/en/data). Increases in
CPI should predict decreases in HDI, and vice versa. Such an
empirical test should provide greater credence in the use of the
CPI as a measure of consumer well-being.
Second, many of the consumer well-being metrics devel-
oped and published by academics can also be improved, and
new metrics can be developed. Let us focus on the consumer
well-being metric based on based on the Consumption Life
Cycle concept. This metric is essentially a composite of con-
sumer satisfaction of local marketplace activities – satisfaction
with shopping in the local area, ownership of material posses-
sions mostly bought in the local area, consumption of goods
and services bought in the local area, servicing and repairs of
consumer durables found in the local area, and the disposal of
durable goods in the local area. Research has demonstrated that
this metric has construct validity through correlations with
measures of various dimensions of subjective well-being
(e.g., Grzeskowiak et al. 2006; Lee et al. 2002; Sirgy and Lee
2003; Sirgy et al. 2008). This metric can be improved by inject-
ing a consumer involvement dimension into the calculus. That
is, the index can be made more predictive of subjective well-
being by considering the moderating effects of consumer invol-
vement (Mittal 1995) in these marketplace activities.
Third, another way to improve the consumer well-being
metrics developed by academics is to establish the construct
validity of the metrics using new and emerging concepts of
well-being such as eudaimonia and social well-being (see an
in-depth discussion of these concepts in Sirgy 2012, 2019, and
Joshanloo, Sirgy, and Park 2018). The literature of subjective
well-being has blossomed considerably over the last 50 years.
Quality-of-life scholars have accepted the concept of subjective
well-being as a broad category of phenomena that involves
positive emotions (preponderance of positive over negative
affect), domain satisfaction (satisfaction in various life domains
such as family life, social life, work life, etc.), and life satisfac-
tion (a global judgment of satisfaction with life overall) (Sirgy
2012). During the last 20 years or so, new concepts of well-
being have emerged, concepts such as eudaimonia and social
well-being (Sirgy and Uysal 2016). The eudaimonic program of
research focuses on “functioning well in life.” For example,
eudaimonia (or psychological well-being) reflects the quality
with which individuals are functioning in their lives (not neces-
sarily how positive they feel about their lives). The construct
involves several dimensions such as autonomy, positive rela-
tions with others, environmental mastery, personal growth,
and purpose in life (Ryff and Singer 2003). Furthermore,
social well-being is now a well-established construct in
Sirgy
quality-of-life studies. Social well-being reflects positive
social functioning and it involves conceptual dimensions such
as social acceptance, social actualization, social contribution,
social coherence, and social integration (Keyes 2003). We
need to use the emerging concepts of eudaimonia and social
well-being to help us conceptualize and develop new con-
sumer well-being concepts and metrics. Consumer well-
being, construed in terms of sustainable consumption (Dolan
2002), is an example of this effort.
Fourth, not all consumers value the same thing in the mar-
ketplace. Research in Asia (Leong et al. 2016) has shown that
consumers can be segmented into six clusters: market mavens,
hobby shoppers, social shoppers, non-shoppers, treasure
hunters, and survival shoppers. As such, we should recognize
that consumer well-being may mean different things to differ-
ent people. Another consumer study in New Zealand
(Ganglmair-Wooliscroft and Lawson 2011) provided us with
yet another grouping of consumer based on their lifestyle:
pragmatic strugglers, educated liberals, success-driven extro-
verts, pleasure seekers, traditional values people, social
strivers, and conservative quiet lifers. Moreover, consumer
well-being may be manifestly different across product cate-
gories. For example, Hudders and Pandelaere (2012) conducted
a study in relation to luxury goods and services and found that
luxury consumption does indeed contribute to subjective
well-being. Additionally, research has shown that consumer
happiness is best enhanced through experiential consumption
compared to consumption of material goods (see Schmitt, Bra-
kus, and Zarantonello 2015 for literature review). In sum, we
need to develop new consumer well-being metrics to reflect the
wide variation of consumer lifestyles and product categories.
Finally, the established macromarketing constructs of con-
sumer well-being may be too focused on material goods and
services. Malhotra (2006) makes the case that there is a need to
go beyond the focus on goods and services. Such emphasis on
goods and services reflects an emphasis on materialism, and
there is much research on the adverse effects of materialism on
subjective well-being (see Sirgy et al. 2020 for a literature
review). Materialism may be antithetical to quality of life.
He also argues that an undue emphasis on consumption is
morally objectionable (Seegebarth et al. 2016). If so, then
we need to develop new macromarketing metrics of consumer
well-being by making a clear distinction between “positive”
goods and services (those that enhance human development
and are not harmful to the environment) and “negative” goods
and services (those that are evidenced to reduce the quality of
life of the consumers as well as those other stakeholders). We
then must develop different metrics for these two distinct
categories of goods and services. Similar criticisms have been
leveled against other macroeconomic constructs such as the
Gross Domestic Product (Van den Bergh 2009). Malhotra also
argues that there is a need to develop consumer well-being
measures at the country level (cf. Peterson 2006; Peterson and
Malhotra 2000). Yes indeed! Future research is encouraged in
this area too.
5
Concluding Thoughts
Macromarketing has evolved over the years into a marketing
sub-discipline (Shapiro 2008a, 2008b). Macromarketing, with
its concern for the interactions among markets, marketing, and
society is clearly connected to this idea of quality of life — the
entire marketing system delivers quality of life to consumers, at
least theoretically speaking. George Fisk, one of the founding
fathers of macromarketing within the discipline, in one of his
many eloquent presentations, noted that “The role of macro-
marketing is to save the world” (Fisk 2001). Wilkie (2005)
argues that although marketing practice is mostly driven by the
marketing concept, it is important to incorporate society at
large into the profession, underscoring the significance of con-
sumer well-being. As such, enhancing consumer well-being
should be a major goal for marketing. This is the essence of
what my colleagues and I call “quality-of-life marketing” (Lee
and Sirgy 2004; Sirgy 1996, 2001; Sirgy and Lee 1996, 2008).
We defined this concept as marketing practice designed to
enhance the well-being of customers while preserving the
well-being of the firm’s other stakeholders. That is, quality-
of-life marketing is based on an ethical marketing philosophy
involving two dimensions: enhancement of consumer well-
being (beneficence) and preservation of other stakeholders
(non-maleficence). The concepts of beneficence and non-mal-
eficence) are major principles in business ethics. Other ethics
concepts directly and indirectly related to consumer well-being
include consumer sovereignty, stakeholder theory, social jus-
tice, and human development (Pancer and Handelman 2012;
Sirgy 2008). The consumer well-being construct is a wide
reaching construct providing a theoretical foundation to guide
marketing research, strategy, and tactics at the micro level of
marketing practice and at the macro level in guiding public
policy and assessing the aggregate effects of marketing practice
on local communities and society at large.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
M. Joseph Sirgy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6379-0199
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Author Biography
M. Joseph Sirgy is the Virginia Tech Real Estate Professor of
Marketing at Department of Marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
& State University, Blacksburg, VA 24060-0236; and Extraordinary
Professor, WorkWell Research Unit; Faculty of Economic and
Management Sciences; North West University, Potchefstroom
Campus, South Africa. Phone: (540) 231-5110; e-mail: sirgy@vt.
edu; Fax: (540) 231-3076.