The research objective is to enable the marketers to understand better the parameters that effect the re-purchasing decision, and to evaluate whether the factor of level of involvement influence the results. The research population consisted of young men and women aged 18-25 who were considered as the target audience. The research examined the level of loyalty, product quality and involvement, in three product categories: Low level of involvement – Deodorant. Medium level of involvement – fashion clothes. High level of involvement – Cellular Phones.
The research examined the relationship between the perceived quality and the willingness to repurchase.
The research findings yielded, according to the Pearson correlation conducted between the perceived quality of the product and the consumer loyalty, a non-significant relationship on a low level of involvement, a weak significant relationship on a moderate level of involvement, and a strong significant relationship regarding a product with a high level of involvement. In other words, it can be determined that on a higher level of perceived quality the consumers’ loyalty is higher, depending on the product with a high level of involvement. When the relationship between the dimensions of quality to loyalty as a whole is examined, it was found that there are weak significant positive relationships between the dimensions of perceived quality (product quality, quality of packaging, etc.) and the product loyalty. These findings exemplify that the relationship between the product quality and the customer loyalty is not strong and there are situations in which clients will prefer products that are not higher quality products and even products of lower quality in categories of products with low involvement.
These arguments were strengthened by the findings of the explained variance, which show that the value of the variable of the perceived quality has a low significant contribution in the prediction of client loyalty, which is strengthened with the rise in the level of involvement.
These findings are also expressed when multiple regression is performed, the findings show that the perceived quality partially predicts the customer loyalty. These findings strengthen the argument that the perceived product quality is not always a measure of loyalty and it is possible that customers will be loyal to different products on a different hierarchy of quality, according to their needs and financial ability.
The comparison of the means between the measures of the customer loyalty found that the customers tend more to repetitive purchase of the product than to recommendation to their friends. The findings show that when the consumer involvement apparently is not sufficiently high, he agrees to compromise and does not choose the highest quality and most advanced product in the field.
To summarize, the findings show that on low levels of involvement, the consumer loyalty is not significantly influenced by the perceived product quality and the purchase decision process is influenced by other parameters. These findings strengthen the argument that the perceived product quality is not a measure of loyalty, and it is possible that consumers will be loyal to different products on a different hierarchy of qualities, according to their needs and economic ability. It should be noted that regarding products of high involvement the consumer may develop loyalty to products with high perceived quality.
