Consumer involvement and associated behaviour in the UK high-end retail offtrade wine market

This study identifies the importance of product attributes to wine consumers andassociated consumer behavioural relationships to their involvement level with thisproduct category. Data were collected in an independent specialist high-end wine retailstore from UK consumers who had purchased and/or consumed wine within a period ofone month leading up to the survey. In operationalising the research, a 13-item multidimensionalwine involvement profile scale was developed that returned a Cronbach's a of 0.884. High-involvement wine consumers do not place less importance on pricethan low-involved consumers, but they are less committed to specific brands. Brandname thus has greater importance in the wine-buying decisions of low-involvementconsumers, particularly when it is for a special occasion. High-involvement consumersare significantly more inclined to use newspapers, magazines, the Internet and winebooks as their sources of information on wine. Word-of-mouth, however, plays themost important role of all information sources for both low- and high-involvementwine consumers. Whereas males are more highly involved wine consumers thanfemales, the main causal factor thereof is their higher income level. The findings of thisstudy suggest overall that wine consumers' behaviour varies depending on theirinvolvement level with the wine product.