Impact of age on actual purchase, confirming the mediating role of overload confusion and ambiguity confusion: Insights from mushrooms in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Information overload and ambiguity confusion have been areas of great concern to date for both marketers and consumers. The situation has led researchers to seek more understanding of the consumers and what drives their purchase behaviour such that marketers can sell them their products, and develop businesses, on that basis. The challenge of confusion comes from the background that consumers are information processors, but as they get aged, their information processing capacity declines. Therefore, this paper seeks to analyse the impact of age on actual purchases mediated by the level of overload confusion and ambiguity confusion. The qualitative data were analysed using the thematic content analysis approach in Nvivo version 12. The reliability and validity of the scale were tested using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling. SmartpPls was used for calculating the path coefficients in order to mirror the relationships between the variables. The results show that old-age consumers experience higher levels of information overload and ambiguity confusion than young adult consumers in the age group 18 - 49 years which is in line with the theory under study. However, a high level of information overload confusion empirically proved that its impact on actual mushroom purchase reduction is insignificant. A high level of information ambiguity and confusion showed a significant inverse impact on actual purchase behaviour. Qualitative evidence showed that high levels of confusion negatively impact on actual purchase behaviour in both age groups. Mushroom marketers were therefore recommended to consider segmenting cultivated mushroom markets on the basis of age and the type of confusion which they experience. A recommendation was also made that marketers could provide consumers with only essential mushroom information through mass media to reduce the chances of information overload during information search.