Abstract:
This paper focuses on observing the differences of decision making patterns of male and
female consumers toward the fashionable garments. Consumer decision making process
comprises mainly two steps as pre-decision stage and post-decision stage. Consumers may
sometimes typically rely on simple strategies, rather than going through a series of steps or
processes rationally when they made purchase decisions. Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) is
specially developed for exploring the customer different decision making style was adapted
for this study. This study attempted to identify the buying behavior patterns of Sri Lankan
consumers and as well as explore the differences of buying patterns of male and female
consumers. According to the consumer style inventory (CSI) model, there are seven decision
styles of consumers. Throughout this study researcher hope to investigate how the decision
making patterns can be different between male and female consumers in Sri Lanka. The study
is tapping the responses of 200 respondents from different gender groups in Sri Lanka. The
sample was selected conveniently and occupied by undergraduates at the University of
Ruhuna. The survey was employed as the tool to collect primary data and used selfadministered
questionnaire which was built up focusing Consumer Style Inventory (CSI).The
variables of the study were perfectionism or high-quality consciousness, brand consciousness,
novelty-fashion consciousness , recreational, hedonistic shopping consciousness, price and
―value for money‖ shopping consciousness, impulsiveness, confusion over choice of brands,
stores and consumer information, and habitual, brand loyal orientation towards consumption.
Descriptive frequencies indicated that, the majority of the respondents in the sample is
representing ‗ perfectionism or high-quality consciousness‘ buying pattern. The results of the
t-test state that, though the female consumers illustrate high mean values, respects to all the
buying patterns than the male consumers. Accordingly, only the ‗brand consciousness‘
buying pattern indicates the significant difference between male and female consumers
related to the selected sample. Further, future application of the findings and managerial
implications are discussed.
