Purchasing a General Ticket - a Means End Approach

Abstract

Consumer behavior or decision making by consumer can be viewed from different perspectives. In the case of the underlying study judgment and decision theory and systematic versus heuristic decision making build bases for the research discussion. The buying behavior of season tickets underlies a complex decision process. The railway customer can deal with complexity in two ways. Either he decides on the based on heuristics of his rather emotional beliefs or systematic based on a rational calculation. The goal of the study is the explanation of the two consumer typologies when buying seasonal tickets along the continuum from rather heuristically to systematically made decisions. Drivers for a rather heuristically based vs. a systematically based decision process under consideration of endogenous and exogenous factors and the willingness to pay are evaluated. Literature review is used to find relevant heuristic and systematic decision factors. Further expert interviews verify those factors. Primary research with railway customers in Switzerland is conducted using implicit and explicit research methods to find the relevance of factors influencing a buying decision. Results show the decision process of rail season ticket customers. It is shown that convenience factors have a greater impact on season ticket sales than systematic factors. Furthermore, it is shown that customers who base their buying decisions on heuristic convenience factors rather than systematic price calculations are less price sensitive. Elements of customer benefits have come out of the research. From those benefits factors which make rail travels more valuable will be derived. The knowledge of the impact of heuristic and systematic factors on the buying decision of seasonal railway tickets allows an explanation of willingness to pay for those tickets.

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