Effect of the Elderly Consumers' Financial Independency on Eating-out Decision Making Process

노인 소비자의 경제적 독립성이 외식 구매 의사 결정 과정에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

As Korea has approached the aging society, older Koreans have become an important force in restaurant sales today. To succeed with this silver market, it is important for restaurant managers to know who they are and which factor influence the older Koreans' eating-out decision making process. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the elderly consumers financial independency on restaurant selection process. Data were collected from 178 older consumers above 55 years old and analyzed using the descriptive statistic analysis, MANOVA, and one-way ANOVA. The results showed that the elderly consumers financial independency significantly influenced the decision making process in determining where they eat out Significant differences were found between high income group and low income group in the Problem Recognition Step(Wilks' Lambda=0.776, F=3.796), Information Search Step(Wilks' Lambda=0.779, F=2.959), Alternative Evaluation Step (I :Wilks' Lambda=0.835, F=1.748/ II :Wilks' Lambda=0.764, F=3.212), and Purchase Decision Step(Wilks' Lambda=0.849, F=2.412), except the Post-Purchase Behavior(Wilks' Lambda=0.933, F=1.179). The more financially independent older consumers were, the more directly they were involved in the eating out decision making process. Older consumers with higher income and more personal property were likely to 'propose to eat out by themselves'(F=10.986), to obtain restaurant information from the 'printed materials'(F=9.707), to consider 'convenient location' as most important factor when they eat out(F=5.594), and to go to 'family restaurant'(F=7.067), 'Japanese restaurant'(F=7.391) and 'fine dining restaurants'(F-=6.382). In conclusion, we found that the elderly consumers financial independency did influence the eating-out decision making process. Considering that older Korean will become a financially independent consumer and will be eating away from home more often, food service operations should actively position themselves for this market and develop the market-driven menus and services to meet their needs and expectations.