Editing Consumer behaviour (section)

==== Prior experience ====
The consumer's prior experience with the category, product, or brand can have a major bearing on purchase decision-making. Experienced consumers (also called experts) are more sophisticated consumers; they tend to be more skillful information searchers, canvass a broader range of information sources, and use complex heuristics to evaluate purchase options.  Novice consumers, on the other hand, are less efficient information searchers and tend to perceive higher levels of purchase risk on account of their unfamiliarity with the brand or category. When consumers have prior experience, they have less motivation to search for information and spend less effort on information search but can process new information more efficiently.<ref>Carroll, C.E., ''The Handbook of Communication and Corporate Reputation'', Chichester, Sussex, Wiley, 2013, p. 44</ref> One study, for example, found that as consumer experience increases, consumers consider a wider range of purchase alternatives (that is, they generate a larger consideration set, but only at the product category level).<ref>Johnson, M.D. and Lehmann, D.R., "[http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=7885 Consumer Experience and Consideration Sets For Brands and Product Categories]", in ''Advances in Consumer Research'', Vol. 24, 1992, Merrie Brucks and Deborah J. MacInnis (eds), Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 295-300.</ref>