The purpose of this paper is twofold: to categorize and rank products based on children's influence and to compare their influence on the different stages of the family buying process.
The study was based on an extensive literature review and focus group discussions. Using a structured questionnaire, a survey was conducted with children aged 8‐12 years. The sample size was 175.
Factor analysis revealed three distinct product clusters: “loud”, “noisy” and “quiet” goods. Children's influence was found to be highest for noisy goods, lesser for loud goods and lowest for quiet goods. One‐way MANOVA analysis found that for loud and noisy goods children's influence was highest in the initiation stage, and lowest in the search stage. For quiet goods, the highest influence was in the final decision stage followed by initiation and choice stage.
The identified product clusters and children's relative influence across the buying stages for these clusters are expected to enhance marketer's understanding of children's role in family decision making. Marketers should take these observations into consideration while designing and implementing their marketing strategies.
The results are important because previous studies have dealt with children's influence for various products at a broad level. In this paper, an innovative segmentation for products based on children's influence level has been identified and the influence measured across these clusters.
