Using competence sets to analyze the consumer decision problem

This study is intended to provide a different approach to complement the existing consumer decision models (CDMs). Based on the concept of habitual domains and competence sets, we supply a framework for helping a firm in expanding the benefits of its products to fully address the consumer's needs. According to the features of consumers' decision making, we use challenging problem types to explore extensive problem solving, fuzzy problem types for limited problem solving, and routine and mixed routine problem types for routine problem solving. In addition, several useful indexes are established using fuzzy measures in this study, including the possibility of successfully appealing to consumers, the degree of consumer satisfaction, the degree of compatibility, and the degree of uniqueness. These indexes can be a decision support for implementing competence set analysis in practical applications. Finally, an empirical study on children's apparel was conducted to show the applicability and feasibility of our proposed method in practice. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.