(Evaluation of Consumer Decision-Making Styles when buying Cosmetics Products (A Case Study:in Iran

Given the competitive state of today’s business world, business managers must improve their abilities concerning identification and analysis of the main factors influencing customers’ decisions. Business managers must identify what is important to their customers and how they aim at marketing their strengths compared to those of their competitors. Therefore, in order to gain competitive advantages, they shall identify and study customer behavior. The purpose of this paper, which is a field study using survey method, is to evaluate decision-making styles of consumers when buying cosmetics according to a model developed by Sproles and Kendall (1986). For this purpose, a 30-question questionnaire entitled Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) was handed over to 400 customers of the cosmetics stores in the city of Shiraz (in Iran). The results revealed that customers use the following decision-making styles ranked in the order of significance: High quality conscious, Brand conscious, Novelty-fashion consciousness, Recreational/Hedonistic, loyal to Brand, price conscious, Confused by over-choice, and impulsive and careless.

decision-making styles, Cosmetics products, Consumer Style Inventory(CSI), Sproles & Kendall’s model