Today's consumers confront an almost confusingly wide choice among alternative brands within product categories. As consumers have neither the time nor the motivation to collect detailed information about the products/brands, they are likely to rely on ‘heuristics’ to arrive at their decisions. The product evaluation process can be explained via the “affect-reversal” process discussed by Wright, which suggests that consumers do not examine every product attributes every time they make choice; they simplify their decision-making process by basing their judgments on cues (summary information) than on detailed product attributes. According to this theory, products consist of an array of cues that serve as surrogate indicators of quality to shoppers the particular cues are evoked according to their predictive and confidence values. The predictive value of a cue (PV) is the degree to which consumers associate a given cue with product quality. This is similar to the diagnosticity of the cue, which represents the reliability of a cue and the likelihood that using it would lead to a successful task resolution.. The confidence value of a cue (CV) is the degree to which consumers have confidence in their ability to use and judge that cue accurately Cues characterized by high CV and high PV assume the greatest weight in the quality assessment process.
Cues, Intrinsic Cues, Extrinsic Cues, Quality, Value, Product Evaluation, Purchase Intention
