A consumer profile analysis of the self-service gasoline customer.

Abstract

Three hypotheses about possible differences between self-service and conventional service gasoline station customers were derived from a review of the general literature. The first hypothesis stated that because the self-service station features lower price and minimized contact with station personnel, the customers at these stations would be more like Stone's (1954) price sensitive economic shopper and less like his relationships oriented personalizing shopper. Since the self-service station was a recent innovation in the market area surveyed, it was further hypothesized that customers at these stations would tend to possess the characteristics associated with innovative product use. According to Rogers and Stanfield (1968) new product users tend to be better educated, more literate, have higher incomes and higher standards of living, have higher achievement aspirations for their children and are more knowledgeable about world and local events. The third hypothesis was taken from a laboratory study by Jacoby (1971) who found that for many products, innovative use was inversely related to degree of dogmatism (Rokeach, 1960). On the basis of Jacoby's results and the fact that self-service stations were new in the area surveyed, the investigators of this study predicted that self-service customers would be less dogmatic in their thought processes than customers who patronize conventional gasoline stations.

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