Purchase Involvement

What it is

It is temporary and set by the mix of person, product and situation, so someone can love a product category yet barely think about this particular purchase. Higher involvement means a longer, more careful decision process. On this site it is read alongside Habitual, Limited and Extended Decision Making, Consumer Decision Process and Situational Influence.

In effect

A person may be very involved with cars or a favourite brand yet low in involvement with the purchase; the book adds that a wish to set an example or impress a friend can raise it.

What it does not say

It is not the same thing as Habitual, Limited and Extended Decision Making, which sits close to it on this site but describes a different part of how people decide. It also does not say that the finding reaches every product, buyer or setting; where this page goes beyond the cited research, the step is an inference and is labelled as one.

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