Exploring approaches for classifying ornamental garden plant purchasers

摘要

Involvement scales have been widely used to measure the extent to which a product is associated with an individual's self-concept, and the hedonic pleasure evoked by the activity or product. A number of studies have linked involvement with higher overall spending on a product. This study aimed to determine whether gardening involvement predicted increased garden plant purchasing behavior in Canada and to understand the implications of high gardening involvement by comparison with other measures, both subjective (self-assessed expertise) and objective (hours spent gardening, objective gardening knowledge). Gardening involvement did not predict purchasing behavior nor did self-assessed gardening expertise. However, objective measures (hours spent gardening and objective gardening knowledge) were found to predict plant purchasing. It is suggested that the involvement scale be used in combination with objective measures to distinguish between consumers with high product interest but low present use and those with high interest and high product use.