The Enigma of Consumer Resistance to Innovation
Most modern-day innovations, however functional or creatively conceived, have faced the brunt of consumer resistance and failed due to non-adoption. This resistance has often been attributed to the inertia consumers feel due to the comfort that they have with the status quo and the effort required to adapt to innovations that may enter the market. This is quite ironic purely because newer innovations usually tend to the needs of the consumer better than the existing products available in the market. More specifically, digital innovations such as online shopping, net banking, and e-wallets have suffered the most among the majority elderly population.
This resistant behavior and characteristics of the consumer are visualized in two major ways: negative response to any innovation such as rejection or any sort of adverse attitudes such as opposition; and lack of motivation to use newer innovations or delaying the switchover to newer innovations wherein the former is a case of active resistance and the latter a case of passive resistance. Active resistance to a certain extent involves a certain level of evaluation and judgment leading to failure due to psychological or functional barriers but passive resistance has no such evaluation involved and rather a proclivity to resist change in the status quo or not willing to accept newer technology. Upon further understanding of the issue, it was found that the way newer innovation is used (which may require a certain degree of change from the side of the consumer), the risks such as financial cost or uncertainty in choice associated with it may not be present in the models currently present. The value associated with the innovation when compared to the alternatives is the functional barrier that substantiates active resistance while implicit and explicit traditional implications such as the way a certain product is thought of with a certain degree of ease of usage are what constitute the psychological barriers.
Though there has been a substantive solution in the form of the depiction of the perceived ease of usage and extensively proven usefulness of the innovation, other influences such as social expectation and peer pressure have also to a certain extent had an impact on the resistance of the consumers. However, a proven factor in this consumer resistance is the aspect of risk perception or the way the consumers identify the criticality or threat of the innovation they would be adopting. In the example of net banking or e-wallets, older generations generally perceive them as a threat as they feel the value barriers more intensely compared to the younger generations who tend to be a little more experimental and possess a reduced degree of caution in usage. However, this can be alleviated by marketing these said innovations to the older generations in a more personal manner with a certain degree of one-to-one guidance which may help in counteracting such negative perceptions.
Moreover, to a certain extent, security risks or any sort of privacy concerns also prove to be a major threat to the newer digital innovations such as mobile apps, online shopping, or even a newer form of social media. Perceived price, enjoyment, complexity, comfort, intuitive usage, proprietary attribute, concerning characteristics, and social influence are what is often looked at in terms of consumer reaction to any kind of innovations. Any sort of complexity whether visible on the face of the product such as too many features or difficulty in understanding the functionality is what essentially induces the inherent negative response of the consumer such as rejection, postponement, and opposition as discussed earlier. Also, it is seen that the resistance to such innovations increases with the increased impact of the product in the person’s life and to what extent it affects the individual. Most times, it is seen that the satisfaction of services that are provided offline or stickiness towards cash payments are some examples of consumer inertia and this affects the newer innovations more strongly compared to other factors discussed above. Usually, any sort of rejection is attributed to the convergence of increased costs but less satisfaction in terms of functionality or quality but postponement is attributed only to the increased cost of innovation.
To further substantiate the above-explained consumer resistance and explain other marketing implications, we take up the Behavior Reasoning Theory (BRT). BRT determines the linkage between beliefs or values, reasons (for and against), global motives (attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control), intentions, and user behavior measures while also providing additional cognitive routes through reasons (for and against) raised to understand human behavior and decision-making processes. Reasons constitute specific cognitions that individuals use to form decisions confidently and even explain their intentions or behavior and represent a narrower chain of thoughts than beliefs or values that describe people’s behavior. In many decision-making contexts, reasons provide unique insights by justifying and defending individual actions, which further support the acceptability of the judgment. While making decisions, individuals first construct a summary of relevant affirmations in their minds supporting the memory, and these affirmations function as an input for explanations or any reasonable justifications. By understanding BRT, we identify accurate consumer insights, develop better marketing strategies, and understand policy-making based on what is most sought out for amidst people. BRT also has applicability in other domains such as behavioral operations in order to know more about the consumer decision-making process which further helps in developing more targeted approaches to potentially influence decisions through external means.
If you wish to read further on these topics, visit
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1441358220300628
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1441358220300367
