An empirical study on the decision‐making styles of the Chinese peasant consumers

Purpose – This paper aims to determine Chinese peasant consumers' decision‐making styles. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reflects on the psychological orientation and decision‐making styles of peasants' purchase of durable appliances. This has the dual character of purchase behavior by the study on factor analysis from a view of peasants' consumption psychology. The consumer style inventory (CSI) was administered in January 2009 to 5,827 peasants in 656 villages in 14 provinces which were selected randomly in China. Both an exploratory factor analysis and a confirmatory factor analysis are adopted to validate the CSI inventory. This results in a 25‐item and eight‐factor solution. Findings – Findings indicate that three consumer segments are formed: confused by over choice peasant consumer; fashion and impulsive peasant consumer; and perfect peasant consumer. The income effect on a farmer's purchasing has a threshold, while income does not reach the limit, income does not have an obvious effect on the decision‐making styles of peasants' purchasing on durable appliances, the category of consumer styles depends on the “individual” factor of peasants' consumption psychology, and their consumption behavior characteristics depend on the grade of psychological orientation and decision‐making styles of the consumer. Practical implications – The marketing mix of an enterprise should recognize the potential differences of psychology of the peasant consumer. Enterprises should adopt positive marketing strategies in pricing to induce and inspire consumer motivation and behavior, so that enterprises can positively interact with rural consumers and achieve optimal allocation of marketing resources. Originality/value – This paper decribes the decision‐making styles of Chinese peasant consumers based on their purchasing behavior with regard to consumer and consumption psychology. The effect of annual average income and income source of the family on the consumers' decision‐making styles is not obvious, but the number of people in a family has some effect on consumers' decision‐making styles.