DEVIANT CONSUMER BEHAVIOR :
The deviant consumer behaviors include negligent and fraudulent behaviors.
Negligent Consumer Behavior : COMPULSIVE BUYING
Most consumers engage in buying as a normal and routine part of their everyday lives. But when the buying becomes compulsive the goal shifts from obtaining utility from the purchased item to achieving gratification from the purchasing process itself. Compulsive buying is chronic. Repetitive purchasing that becomes a primary response to negative events or feelings . It becomes very difficulty to stop and ultimately results in harmful consequence to individuals or others. Compulsive buying is undesirable because it has sever consequences such as amassing huge amounts of debt that are difficult to retire and feelings of remorse , lowered self esteem, and weekend inter personal relationships . Shopaholics are addicted to purchasing and use it as a fix to offset emotional deprivation. And when they are confronted over their spending habits they will often switch to another type of chronic destructive habits such as over eating, work holism or over exercising. Studies show that as much as 10 percent of the American population can be classified as hard core shoppers who shop for shopping sake rather that to fill real needs. One factor facilitating the process is the easy availability of the credit cards. It is probably no coincidence that there has been a rapid growth in the bank cards issued during the rise in the problem of compulsive consumption. One consumer was even able to obtain 1199 different types of credit cards to win a bet with a friend. The result of easy credit can be staggering debt. Support groups have been established to fight this type of addiction by helping people who are trying to stop their compulsion to spend beyond their means for things they don’t need.
FRADULENT CONSUMER BEHAVIOR :
Shop lifting is an example of fraudulent or a criminal type of deviant consumer behavior that involves the theft of retail merchandise during the store hours by someone who is shopping or pretending to shop. Shop lifting rose 35 per cent between the mid – 1980’s – 1990 and equals about two per cent of all retail sales excluding gas and car purchases. Thus , it must be emphasized that consumers, just as business and other organizations , have an obligation to act responsibly in the marketplace in exchange relationships.
Ethical shopping and ethical trade initiatives:
Every day we choose between different products. Our purchase decisions do not only affect us ourselves. The way the products have been produced can make a big difference to other people, to nature, the environment and to animals. Ethical purchase behavior is about taking responsibility for the influence which we control ourselves.
Ethically questionable consumer behavior
The more one equals ethics with moral criticism and moral self-criticism, the more natural it is to start with looking at unethical rather than ethical consumer behavior. In addition to potential theory-traditional reasons, there are good practical and economic reasons for explaining, influencing and prohibiting ethically questionable consumer behavior. A red thread in this consumer ethics research tradition has been it’s the development, validation and frequent replication of the "consumer ethics scale" (often referred to as CES. This CES scale offers a list of more or less ethically questionable consumer activities for a vote. The activities can be grouped into four categories, ranging from clearly questionable to little controversial categories: Actively benefiting from illegal activity
1. Changing price tags on merchandise in a retail store.
2. Drinking a can of soda in a supermarket without paying for it.
3. Reporting a lost item as "stolen" to an insurance company in order to collect the money.
4. Giving misleading price information to a clerk for an un-priced item.
5. Returning damaged merchandise when the damage is your own fault. passively benefiting at the expense of others
6. Getting too much change and not saying anything.
7. Lying about a child's age in order to get a lower price.
8. Not saying anything when the server miscalculates the bill in your favor. actively benefiting from questionable behavior
9. Breaking a bottle of salad dressing in a supermarket and doing nothing about it.
10. Stretching the truth on an income tax return.
11. Using an expired coupon for merchandise.
12. Using a coupon for merchandise that you did not buy.
13. Not telling the truth when negotiating the price of a new automobile. No harm/no foul
14. Tasting grapes in a supermarket and not buying any.
15. Using computer software or games that you did not buy.
16. Recording an album instead of buying it.
17. Spending over an hour trying on different dresses and not purchasing any.
18. Taping a movie off the television.
19. Returning merchandise after trying it and not liking it.
R.Yuvarani M.Phil Scholar Department of Commerce Periyar University, Salem-11
