Consumer Behavior Across Literacy and Resource Barriers

Abstract

Our understanding of consumer behavior stems largely from studying literate consumers in relatively resource‐rich settings. Yet, a sizable proportion of individuals in the United States and even larger proportions around the world live across resource and literacy barriers. This article examines low‐literate, low‐income consumer behavior in the United States and subsistence consumer behavior in India. Our discussion elaborates on how such consumer behavior is qualitatively different from traditional consumer behavior and what the implications of our insights are for managers and researchers in marketing.

Poverty and Intersectionality

“…Unlike consumers in traditional subsistence marketplaces where many consumers are indeed ''microenterprise operators'' (Viswanathan, Rosa, and Ruth 2010), our trailer park residents do not live in the context of an informal microenterprise economy. Moreover, the financial and healthcare systems are becoming ever more demanding in terms of consumer knowledge, skills and involvement in an advanced economy like the U.S. (Viswanathan 2011). Accordingly, we show that it becomes particularly challenging for the marginalized to navigate these systems that are based on the assumption that it is the consumers' responsibility to take care of their own medical and financial well-being.…”

“…Local traditions put women at a disadvantage securing jobs in factories or finding other job opportunities. As a result, the majority of these entrepreneurs are women who are burdened with the responsibility to maintain their families while possibly getting minimal to no support from their husbands (Viswanathan 2011;Viswanathan, Gajendiran and Venkatesan 2008). Lack of coordinated communal participation in the marketing system could be a discouraging factor for trailer park residents.…”