Popis: |
Prior literature shows how consumers use information processing strategies to evaluate experience products before establishing consumption routines. For instance, consumers interpret brands, aesthetics, brand names, or prices to guide their evaluations. We suggest that consumers also pursue a complementary evaluation strategy that we call empiricist evaluation. Using in-depth interviews and netnographic data collection, we study consumers who aim to evaluate experience products rationally, analytically, and evidence-based. We conceptualize this quasi-scientific evaluation strategy as consumer empiricism. Our literature review identifies prior research that alludes to this phenomenon. However, we miss a holistic understanding of consumers’ empiricist evaluation strategies. Therefore, we ask: How and under what conditions do consumers use empiricist strategies to evaluate consumption routines? We find that consumers use empiricist evaluation strategies in high-involvement consumption fields as they are driven by three interlocking cultural discourses: Institutional mistrust, an urge for optimization, and hyper-individualization. Further, our findings show how consumers use empiricist methods of observation, quantification, triangulation, and sensation to evaluate experience products in their individual contexts. |