Modelling the Factors Affecting Consumerism among Urban Household Consumers in Nakuru County, Kenya

Consumerism has been defined as a social movement seeking to augment the rights and powers of consumers in relation to sellers (Kotler, 2000). The rise of consumerism in Kenya has been marked by registration Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) and enactment of consumer laws including the Competition Act 2010 and Consumer Protection Act 2012. However, despite these institutional developments, consumerism has not yet picked up momentum to the desired levels in the country among Kenyan consumers. Most consumers in Kenya, majority of who are vulnerable, still remain disorganized and uninformed and often unsuspectingly fall prey to fraudulent practices in the market. Kenyan consumers have been exposed to poor quality of goods and services in the marketplace ranging from food to medicines to services (Asher & Rijit, 2012). Again, the consumers’ response to calls for nationwide protests organized by COFEK in 2011 (dubbed “Unga” revolution), 2010 and 2008 over rising cost of living in Kenya were too low to achieve much in the marketplace. The purpose of the study was to develop a model of factors affecting consumerism among urban household consumers in Nakuru County, Kenya. The study was premised on Smelser’s (1963) theory of collective behaviour which stipulates that structural conduciveness, strains, generalized beliefs, precipitation, mobilization into action and social control influence consumerism in a society. The study adopted a descriptive research design involving a mixed method approach. A sample size of 400 respondents was drawn from 10 administrative sub-locations in Nakuru East and Nakuru West sub counties of Nakuru County. Multi-stage cluster sampling technique was used for selecting households for the study. A pre-designed self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. The model was constructed using linear regression analysis with the aid of SPSS (version 19.0) and Stata (version 13.0) software. The model was tested for linearity, collinearity, normality and homoskedasticity assumptions in OLS (Ordinary least squares). The study found out that 17.6 % of the variation in consumerism was significantly explained by consumer rights awareness, attitudes towards marketing practices and consumer discontent. The results of OLS assumption tests confirmed normal distribution in the data; evidence of linearity, absence of multicollinearity and presence of heteroskedasticity in the model. Keywords: Consumer rights awareness, attitude towards marketing practices, consumer discontent, Consumerism