Exploring the Effect of Consumers ’ Food-Related Decision Making Styles on National Brand vs . Store Brand Choice

It is important for marketers to understand individuals’ buying decisions in a competitive environment. The concept of decision making style is one of the key determinants of consumers’ behavioral patterns. This study aims to explore the effects of consumers’ decision making styles on buying national and store brand food products. To examine consumer decision making styles, Sproles & Kendall’s (1986) The Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) is adopted for the study. The framework of the study is based on eight consumer decision making styles, expected to shape consumers’ national and store brand choices on food products. The empirical analysis is based on data obtained from consumers living in Kırşehir, a city in Turkey. Questionnaires are handed over to customers of retail stores both selling national and their own brands. The sample consists of 400 customers. The data is gathered by using convenience sampling and face-to-face survey methods. Multiple regression analysis is used to test some hypotheses of the research and to compare consumers’ national and store brand choices in the context of their decision-making styles. Besides, independent samples t-test and one way ANOVA are also used to see whether national and store brand choices significantly differs in demographic characteristics. The results of the study reveal that lower price seeking, habituation/brand loyalty, recreation consciousness and impulsiveness/carelessness have significant effects on the choice of store brand food product, whereas novelty/fashion consciousness, confused by over choice and value seeking have statistically significant effects on consumers’ choices of national brand food products. Lower price seeking is found to have the strongest effect on consumers’ store brand choices, whereas novelty fashion consciousness has the strongest effect on national brand food product choice. Besides, both store and national brand food product choices differ according to gender and income level.


Introduction
The primary objective of marketing is to satisfy and compensate the needs of the consumers.To accomplish this objective, the first thing may be analyzing consumers' behavior to figure out; how, where and why the product or brand is possessed or purchased by the consumer.Therefore, marketing practitioners should constantly track and analyze consumers' needs, preferences and wants in order to build up successful strategic marketing decisions.
For marketing professionals, customers are viewed as the core of the business and organizational culture rooted in the marketing concepts referring to production, product, and selling concepts by using major strategic tools of segmentation, targeting, and positioning to build successful relationships, emphasizing customer value and retention.In order to fully understand different consumer needs reflecting on their decision-making, the research areas about consumer behavior have expanded from economic theory to other disciplines including psychology, sociology, social psychology, and anthology (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2006).
Although consumption is a global activity, consumers' cultures and patterns should be specifically analyzed to fully understand this activity.In consumer cultures, the routine act of consumption is a central value that infuses every aspect of life (Allen & Anderson, 1994).Besides, due to the economic, social and technological developments, rapidly evolving new products and services also shape consumer trends and lifestyles.The development of global markets has not only causedthe emergence of additional product choices and diverse marketing activities, but also have led consumers' decision-making processes more complicated.Therefore, understanding consumer decision-making styles has gained more importance due to its inherent complicated relationship with shopping behavior.
While consumers face more challenges and alternatives to choose products, managers deal with the difficulty of reaching out to their target markets and the complications of endorsing sales using the marketing strategies (Lihra & Graf, 2007;Wind, 2008;Henrie & Taylor, 2009).One way to confront with this issue is to explore and understand consumer behavior and consumer decision making styles and concepts.One of the important factors influencing consumer purchase behavior is the decision-making styles, which are crucial for understanding consumer shopping behavior and for developing successful marketing strategies.Schiffman & Kanuk (2006) define consumer behavior as "the behavior that consumers display in searching for purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs".Theoretically, these behaviors are reflections of both the cognitive and emotional aspects of consumer decision-making and can be influenced through cross-disciplines of psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and economics (Sproles & Kendall, 1986;Schiffman & Kanuk, 2006;Gordon, 2008).Consumer decision making process involves several steps (Nahavandi, 2006;Robbins & Judge, 2007).At first consumers process information and interact with their desired environment and then make a decision based on their alternatives (Bettman, 1979).
The decision-making process is a multivariate subject in terms of consumer purchasing behavior context.There are several factors affecting each individual's decision apart from each other.The study of individual consumer behavior while choosing between alternative products or brands has been a major research area in the field of consumer interactions to identify the basic characteristics of decision-making styles.This research is based on consumer decision making styles and its effect on food-related national and store brand choice.Based on the empirical study of Sproles & Kendall (1986), eight decision-making styles are categorized to influence consumer purchase decisions while purchasing in the marketplace.They posit that "this identification helps to profile an individual's consumer style, educate consumers about their specific decision-making characteristics, and consult families on financial management".This study is conducted to determine whether consumer-decision making styles significantly affect purchasing national and store brand food products.Moreover, it also profiles consumer decision-making styles by using the Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) instrument to understand and predict consumer behaviors.
Store brands or private label products are basically designed to imitate the leading national brand, which deals with the relative quality measure and the relative consumer's "quality" preference (Toommongkol, 2011, p. 102).Store brands or private labels today account for one of every five items sold every day in US supermarkets, drug chains, and mass merchandisers (Atıg, 2014).With this growing importance of store brands in retailing, practitioners are in search of innovative strategic guidelines to take the full advantage of store brands.This trend also prompts marketing academicians to address various issues related to store brands, such as the factors for store brand success (Dhar & Hoch 1997), the positioning of store brands (Sayman et al., 2002;Du et al., 2005), the effect of store brand introduction (Raju et al., 1995;Chintagunta et al., 2003), the impact of store brand introduction on channel price leadership and optimum price differentials between store vs. national brands (Sethuraman & Cole, 1999) and the optimal product line design for store brands (Chung, 2008).Some of the global researches report that the importance and the market share of store brands increase so rapidly.Store brands are the most developed in Europe, particularly in the Western markets.Switzerland has the highest private-label share (in the region and around the world) at 45%, while Turkey has the moderate share at 14% (The Nielsen Company, 2014).Store brands considered as an alternative to manufacturer brands, is a period of more than 30 years in particular have shown a significant level of development across the US and Europe.Average sales volume of store brands is about $400 billion worldwide, while it is around 1 billion dollars in Turkey.In the study of Sapmaz & Yercan (2015) on Turkey to explore the purchasing behavior of store brand food products against national brand food products in respect to prevailing product features such as price, quality, food safety and brand awareness, it is concluded that the consumers prefer manufacturer brand food products to store brand food products and that the most efficient product quality in the preference of the consumers is the food safety.
Food retailing constitutes almost half of the total retail industry in Turkey.It was 152 billion dollars in 2010 and it has reached up to $165 billion in 2013, with an increase of 9% of the food retail.Between the years of 2013-2017, it is expected to grow by 8% in food retailing (Atıg, 2014).
This study contributes to the literature on consumer behavior and consumer decision making styles by comparing consumers' store brand and national brand food product choices in terms of different decision making styles.While several earlier researches focus on general shopping styles mostly in product-neutral, catalogue or apparel settings (McDonald, 1993;Mitchell & Bates, 1998;Hiu et al., 2001;Fırat, 2011), many previous studies (Hafstrom et al., 1992;Lysonski et al., 1996;Walsh et al., 2001;Kavas & Yeşilada, 2007;Anic et al., 2010) examine the role of demographic characteristics on consumer decision making styles.It is obvious that decision making styles are mostly examined as dependent variable and the factors (e.g., different cultures, demographic characteristics) affecting them have been researched.Apart from these studies, the current study aims to define the effect of consumers' food-related decision making styles on national and store brand choices and to find out which styles have more influence on national brand over store brand choice or vice versa.This article also aims to observe the choices on national and store brand food products based on demographic factors.To our best knowledge, there does not exist any study adopting Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) to compare the interaction between national and store brand choicein Turkey.Besides, this study adopts one of the most comprehensive consumer decision making instrument developed by Sproles & Kendall (1986) and empirically tests it on brand choices.
Besides its theoretical contributions, another contribution of this study is to present strategies for marketers to position national and store brand food products, in the context of certain decision making styles.Due to rapid increase and important market share of store brands, it is necessary to examine store brands and national brands separately and make comparisons between them in terms of decision making styles.Thus, this study is expected to help retailers develop suitable strategies for national and store brand food products.Different marketing strategies for both national and store brand food products can be tailored to the characteristics of consumer.
The rest of the study is as follows: the following sectiongives theoretical background.Consumer decision making process, consumer's decision making styles, consumer styles inventory and national and store brand literature are presented and research hypotheses based on related literature are given.Then, research methodology is defined and research hypotheses are tested in the third part of the study.The results are discussed in the last section and finally, study concludes with implications for future researches.

Consumer Behavior and Consumer Decision Making Styles
Consumer decision-making is defined as the behavior patterns of consumers that precede, determine and follow the decision-making process for the acquisition of need satisfying products, ideas or services (Du Plessis & Rousseau, 1999).Consumers make decisions in order to reach their goals, which include making the best choice among alternative possibilities, reducing the effort in making the decision, minimizing negative emotions and maximizing the ability to justify the decision.In summary, consumer decision-making is a constructive process (Mowen & Minor, 2000).
Decision-making models explore how consumers gather and process information, evaluate alternatives and reach conclusions (Arroba, 1977).There has been a number of general decision-making models proposed over the years (for instance; Deacon & Firebaugh, 1975;Rice & Tucker, 1986;Goldsmith, 1996;Garman, 2002).Bettman (1979) argues that consumer decision-making is a complex process and consumers must constantly gather and process information and evaluate alternatives in this process.Consumers take many things (e.g., price, quality) into consideration while making their decisions.For example, price is accepted as an important indicator of quality when no other information is available (Jacoby, 1976); and several researchers state the influence of store and brand loyalty on consumer decision-making (Jacoby & Chestnut 1978;Miller & Stafford, 2001;Garman, 2002).However, it was not until Sproles (1985) and Sproles & Kendall (1986) conceptualize the Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) that there is an instrument to systematically measure consumer decision-making.Past studies of consumer decision making styles also help researchers to understand shopping behaviors, and advertisers and marketers to develop marketing tools based on decision styles of various consumer groups.
Since Sproles & Kendall (1986) created the Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI), a number of research projects have followed this study and profiled consumer decision-making styles in different cultures (Hafstrom et al., 1992;Lysonski et al., 1996;Fan & Xiao, 1998;Mitchell & Bates, 1998;Walsh et al., 2001;Wang et al., 2004;Gönen & Özmete, 2006;Schiffman & Kanuk, 2006;Mokhlis & Salleh, 2009).Lynsonski et al. (1996) highlight consumer decision styles in three categories: (1) the consumer typology approach (Darden & Ashton 1974;Moschis 1976) ; (2) the psychographics/lifestyle approach (Lastovicka, 1982); and (3) the consumer characteristics approach (Sproles & Kendall, 1986;Sproles & Sproles, 1990).Although all of these approaches basically share the same fundamental idea that consumer behavior concerning brands, prices, quality, and etc., deals decision-making styles, the consumer characteristics approach, which focuses on the mental orientation of consumers in making decision is used and appears to be the most effective one (Lynsonski, et al., 1996, p. 11).This type of approach assumes that consumers follow certain decision-making traits to handle their shopping tasks.Traits that have been identified are, for instance, quality consciousness (Darden & Ashton, 1974) or brand and store loyalty (Moschis, 1976).Sproles & Kendall (1986) combine these and additional traits to develop a consumer decision-making styles list as called consumer styles inventory (CSI).
Consumer decision-making refers to each individual consumer behavior toward choosing between alternative products (Sproles & Kendall, 1986).The Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) is based upon the assumption that individual decision-making dimensions (e.g., psychographic, cognitive and personality characteristics) influence an individual's decision in consumer situations (Arroba, 1977;Sproles & Kendall, 1986).In Sproles and Kendall's (1986, p. 286) empirical study, consumer decision-making style is defined as "a mental orientation characterizing a consumer's approach to making choices".The 40-item CSI is developed based upon basic mental characteristics of consumers making marketplace decisions and researchers conceptualize to eight characteristics of consumer decision-making styles as follows (Sproles & Sproles, 1990, p. 137): Perfectionistic and high-quality conscious consumer: This trait is characterized by a consumer who searches the very best quality in products.Consumers with this style are expected to shop more carefully and more rationally.Often, they are not satisfied with the good enough products.
Brand-conscious and price equal quality consumer: Brand consciousness is defined as consumer orientation towards buying the expensive, well known national brands, believing that the higher the price of a product, the better the quality.They also prefer best-selling and advertised brands.
Novelty-fashion conscious consumer: This factor characterizes novelty seekers, who find seeking out new things pleasurable.Consumers with this style like up-to date styles, with the intent of gaining excitement and pleasure from buying a large variety of new things.
Price-conscious, value-for-money consumer: This factor measures price and value for money consciousness.People scoring high on this trait would be particularly conscious of sale prices and lower prices in general and, more importantly, are concerned with getting the best value for their money.These consumers are likely to be comparison shoppers.
Recreational and hedonistic conscious consumer: Consumers scoring high on this factor view shopping as recreation and entertainment.Consumers with high level of this trait find the shopping as a pleasant activity and shop just for the fun of it.
Impulsive, careless consumer: In contrast with the perfectionism, impulsiveness or carelessness dimension measures an orientation that is characterized by careless and impulsive shopping.These consumers pay less attention to the price they spend or value for money.That is, these consumers do not plan their shopping.
Confused by over-choice consumer: Confused by over-choice style of decision-making characterizes consumers experiencing an overload of information.Overload of information can emerge because there are too many brands and stores.High scores on this characteristic perceive many brands and stores from which to and have difficulty in making choices.
Habitual, brand-loyal consumer: People who have high scores on this factor, unlike the variety seeking behavior of novelty conscious consumers, have favorite brands and stores and have formed habits in choosing these in a repetitive manner.They exhibit a strong tendency to stick with certain brands and stores while shopping.Some researchers usethe CSI to study a number of diverse populations and environments including Korea (Hafstrom et al., 1992), New Zealand (Durvasula et al., 1993;Lysonski et al., 1996), China (Fan & Xiao, 1998), Malaysia (Kamaruddin & Mokhlis, 2003), United Kingdom (Mitchell & Bates, 1998;Bakewell & Mitchell, 2004), Germany (Walsh et al., 2001), Macedonia (Anic et al., 2010) and Turkey (Ünal & Erciş, 2006;Fırat, 2011).Many of these studies reveal resemblances and differences among the main consumer decision making styles, which can be explained by cultural, demographical or economical differences.

National Brand vs. Store Brand
The concept of "store brand" and "national brand" are described as different forms of brand sponsorship (Kotler & Armstrong, 2006)."Store brand" refers to the merchandise that carries wholesalers or retailer's own brand name or a brand name created exclusively for that particular wholesaler or retailer (Kotler & Armstrong, 2006;Levy & Weitz, 2008).Thus, the store brand carries either the retailer's own name or a name that is exclusively created by the retailer.The terms "store brand", "private brand", "private label" and "distributor's brand" are used interchangeably in the marketing literature (Richardson et al., 1994;Gilbert, 2001;Levy & Weitz, 2008).Store brands are the only brands for which retailers take on all the responsibility for marketing activities including development, sourcing and warehousing to merchandising and marketing (Raju et al., 1995;Gilbert, 2001).
In contrast to store brands, national brands are the products designed, produced, controlled and marketed by a manufacturer (Kotler & Armstrong, 2006;Levy & Weitz, 2008).Thus, a manufacturer's brand refers to the brand owned by manufacturers.The terms "national brand" and "manufacturer's brand" have been used in marketing literature interchangeably (Bellizzi et al., 1981;Cunningham et al., 1982;Kotler & Armstrong, 2006).Retailers have very little or no influence over product quality, advertising and brand image, packaging and wholesale cost with regard to manufacturer's brands (Dick et al., 1995).
Discounted store brands have been introduced into the American supermarkets in the late 1970s.It has long been regarded as a cheap generic substitute for the real thing, provided by retailers during recessions and discarded once the economy picked up again.However, consumers changed their view when high quality store brand products were introduced into the market in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Janofsky, 1993).The substantial quality improvement of store brands is the result of technological advances and production by national brand manufacturers.Technological advances have allowed competitors to come close to replicating successful national brands (Kennedy, 1992).Following, some national brands have started producing store brand versions of their name brand products, with the aim to employ the excess capacity in their plants (Beckett, 1992;Janofsky, 1993).
Today, the strategic importance of store brand continues to grow, driven by significant trends affecting the Retail industry.Globally, store brand is estimated to account for 16.5% of all purchases (Deloitte, 2015).To understand current consumer perceptions about private-label quality, value, assortment and packaging, The Nielsen Company (2014) polled more than 30,000 online consumers in 60 countries.A few shared sentiments emerged around the world.Price is indicated as important to most consumers and it is the primary driver of consumers' purchase intent for store brand.69% of respondents globally feel it's important to get the best price on a product.Moreover, 70% of them state that they purchase store brand to save money.Store brand's appeal goes beyond price.Consumers are seeking quality and value, and private label delivers on both of these attributes.Two-thirds (67%) of the respondents believe private label offers extremely good value for money, and 62% of them mention that buying private label makes them feel like a smart shopper (The Nielsen Company, 2014).
The store brand is a product designed to reduce the influence of the national brand product and its manufacturer.It weakens the market power of the existing brand and at the same time offers an additional source of income to the retailer.The related literature mostly shows how the store brand product affects the national brand standing and its profit share in the market, and focus on the two aspects, which are closely intertwine; (1) the brand positioning and (2) the pricing strategy (Toommongkoli, 2011, p. 18).
The competition faced by a national brand from the store brand is very different from that of the other national brands.The introduction of a store brand places the retailer in a dual role as both the national brand manufacturers' immediate customer and their competitor for end consumers' purchases.So, while a national brand can treat the other national brands as pure competitors, it has to treat the retailer who carries the store brand as both a competitor, for end consumer consumption, and a cooperator, because it is also sold through the retailer.The national brand has to account for this mixed relationship with the retailer when forming strategies to counteract the store brand invasion (Hoch, 1996;Quelch & Harding, 1996).Based on experiences of competition with other national brands, national brand manufacturers generally respond to the attack of store brands in three ways: they lower prices, engage in more promotional activities, and further differentiate their products by advertising and new product introductions (Beckett, 1992;Kennedy, 1992;MacDonald, 1998;Nijssen et al., 1998;Martin & Kubomura, 1999).Myers & Nicosia (1968) firstly attempted to identify the determinants of store brand attitude among the Unites States consumers of organized retailers.His study emphasized on testing the extent to which characteristics related to personality, perceptions and socio-economic demographics of consumer explained differences in store brand attitude.Later, Burton et al. (1998) conceptualize store brand attitude to be related with three broad constructs of consumer price perceptions, marketing constructs and deal-proneness constructs.They found store brand attitude positively related to value consciousness, deal proneness, reliance on internal reference prices and smart-shopper self-perceptions.Burger & Schott (1972) in their study on store brand buyer identification observe that price-consciousness and brand loyalty of consumers significantly differentiate between store brand and manufacturer's brand buyers.In a consumer perception study of national, private and generic brands were found to be different on various parameters (Bellizzi et al., 1981).In another study, Garretson et al. (2002) develop a model that states the similarities and differences in the antecedents of store brand attitude and national brands promotion attitude in context of grocery products.Private brands may be viewed in the middle between national brands and generic brands.Omar (1996) performs a research to understand differences between British grocery shoppers of national brands and store brands due to the shoppers' personal characteristics and their behavioral patterns related to shopping supermarkets.
Based on consumer decision making styles, national and store brand literature, this study offers relationships between consumer decision making styles and consumers' store and national brand choices, in the context of food products.It mainly focuses on comparison between national and store brand choice on the basis of decision making styles thanks to the importance of it on decision making.In general, the study examines whether choices on national and store brand food products differs due to consumer decision making styles.More specifically, it offers relation between each dimension of consumer decision making styles and national and store brand choices.It also tests whether national and store brand choices significantly differ in consumers' demographic characteristics.Thus, the study proposes following general hypotheses (The more detailed form of these research hypotheses are presented in Table 7 with their results): Hypothesis 1: Consumer decision making styles have significant effect on the choice of national brand food products.
Hypothesis 2: Consumer decision making styles have significant effect on the choice of store brand food products.
Hypothesis 3: National and store brand choices significantly differs in demographic characteristics (gender, marital status, age, income level, education and occupation)

Sampling and Data Collection
The study focuses on customers of retail stores selling both national brands and their own brands on food product category.More specifically, the study was carried out with customers who have been purchasing from retail stores, located in Kırşehir, one of the cities in Turkey.Retail stores were determined as Migros, Carrefoursa, BIM and A101 since all of them have various food products both with their own brands and national brands.The empirical analysis was carried out based on the data obtained from customers of these retail stores.Since it is not possible to meet the population due to time and financial limitations, the sample includes 400 customers.In the cases that the size of population is equal to or bigger than 10.000.000 and studied with 95% confidence interval, sample size of 384 is indicated as adequate, provided that the researcher collect the data from individuals among the sample (Gegez, 2007, pp. 259, 261).The study was carried out with sample size of 400, because of getting the information that four retail stores mentioned above have met the required number during this research process.
To have equal distribution of 400 samples, 100 samples were gathered from each retail store.While Migros and Carrefoursa have only one branch in the city, BIM and A101 have many branches.Therefore, the data was gathered from only one branch of these two stores (BIM and A101) in order to cope with unequal distribution of sample among different branches.
Convenience sampling and face to face survey methods were used to collect the data.The collection of data was carried out on a voluntary basis.The data collection was carried out outside the stores by means of a questionnaire which was either self-compiled or with direct interview.The data was collected between the dates of 01.03.2016 and 01.05.2016.The data collection was performed systematically by considering frequency of customers in the stores on certain time periods.

Questionnaire Design and Measures
This study used the previous studies' measurement scales to design questionnaire items.All questionnaire items (except for only nine) were measured by using five-point Likert scale from 1 to 5, rating from strongly disagreement to strongly agreement.Totally nine questionnaire items were reversely coded with five-point Likert scale.Sproles & Kendall's (1986) original scale of consumer styles inventory was used to measure different decision making styles.Sproles & Kendall's (1986) consumer styles inventory consist of eight dimensions, including 40 items.The current study adjusted these items in consumer styles inventory with consumers' decision on food products.Since Anic et al. (2015) had studied on consumers' food related decision making styles before, the current study also used their measurement scale in order to harmonize the items in consumer style inventory with food products choices.Eight-factor model including 40-items, adopted into food products is presented in Appendix A. Besides, measurement of consumer's store brand choice includes four items; "I like to buy store brand food products", "I can advise store brand food products", "I will prefer to buy store brand food products in future", I usually buy store brand food products", adopted from Sinha & Batra (1999) and Harcar et al. (2006).Similarly, national brand choice is measured with four items as "I like to buy national brand food products", "I can advise national brand food products", "I will prefer to buy national brand food products in future", I usually buy national brand food products".

Data Analysis
Data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0.Firstly, exploratory factor analysis was conducted in order to see the factor structure of the measure.Cronbach' alpha values were tested for internal consistency of each factor.Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated before regression analysis.Then, research hypotheses (H1 and H2) were tested by using multiple regression analysis.In order to see the mean differences between groups, H3 hypotheses were tested by using independent samples t-test and one way ANOVA.After conducting ANOVA, Tukey test, one of the Post hoc Tests, was used to see the differences between groups.

Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents
A total of 400 respondents participated in the survey.The demographic profile of the respondents is presented in Table 1.Among the respondents, 46% of them were male and 49% were married.About 22% of the respondents were between the ages of 18 and 25, 37% of them were between 26 and 35, 20% of them were between 36 and 45, and 14% of them were between 46 and 55.Namely, the study included different age groups.According to the survey, 38% of the sample indicated that they had secondary education and 26% of them indicated having graduate degree, whereas 31% of the respondents indicated their education level as elementary education.The average monthly income of 45% of the respondents was stated to be between 2001-3000 Turkish Lira, whereas 25% of the respondents stated their income level as between 1001-2000 Turkish Lira.The number of the respondents, indicating their income level as lees than 1000TL and indicating as 3001-4000TL is of 12% and 15% respectively.In terms of their occupation, while 23% of the respondents were housewife, 19% of them indicated their occupation as worker, 16% as government employee and 17% as tradesman.The study also included people having different occupations.Besides, 30% of the participants reported their frequency of shopping for food products as once per week, 29% as several times per week and 28% several times per month.Not surprisingly, food shopping mostly requires frequent buying.Approximately, 45% of the respondents indicated that they had mostly preferred dry foods in their store brand food product choices.Milk and milk products (22.5%) and juices and drinks (21.75%) preferences are at the second row.When national brand choice considered, 42% of the respondents stated milk and milk products as their mostly bought food products.Moreover, 17% of the respondents indicated frozen products as mostly bought food product with national brand.Among the survey respondents, 30% of them reported BIM as mostly preferred retail store for its own brand.22% of the respondents preferred Migros, whereas %23 of them preferred A101 for their store brand choices.This result shows that many respondents (approximately 50%) preferred discount type retail stores for their store brand preferences in food product category.
Firstly, exploratory factor analysis was used to discover the factor structure of the measure and to examine its internal reliability.Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was calculated at 0.752 and Bartlett's test of sphericity indicated statistically significant result (p=.000).So, it can be said that the data set for this study is suitable for factor analysis.Principal component analysis was used as the extraction method and factor loadings were rotated with varimax rotation method.Factor loadings of several items were calculated at the levels of 30%.Thus, they were removed from further analyses (These items removed from the analyses can be seen in Appendix A).All remaining factor loadings were calculated as greater than the level of 0.5, indicating the required level (Hair et al., 1998).Exploratory factor analysis results revealed a total of 10 factors, having eigenvalues greater than 1.The ten-factor solution explained 70.299% of total variance, greater than the recommended level of 0.6 (Gerbing & Anderson, 1988).Besides, the internal consistency of the scale used in the study was tested by Cronbach's alpha coefficient.Cronbach's alpha values were calculated for perfectionism as (0.942); novelty consciousness (0.907); brand consciousness (0.868); confused by over choice (0.855); impulsiveness (0.742); time spent for shopping (0.720); habituation (0.780); lower price seeking (0.702); recreation consciousness (0.701) and value seeking (71.8).Since the values for each factor was greater than 0.7, there is a sufficient indicator of reliability (Fornell ve Larcker, 1981;Hair et al., 1998).Perfectionism, novelty consciousness, brand consciousness and confused by over choice decision styles were found to have higher reliability compared to others.The results of exploratory factor analysis are presented in Table 2 Exploratory factor analysis results of this study are not totally consistent with eight factor model of Sproles & Kendall (1986) (Eight factor model including 40 items can be seen in Appendix A).Two factors were added in this study and labeled as "time spent for shopping" and "value seeking".When item loadings are compared with previous studies, a number of differences reveal.For example, two items loaded negatively on the recreational-hedonistic factor in Sproles & Kendall (1986) and Anic et al. (2015) studies, were found to load on a different additional factor in this study.This factor was labeled as "time spent for shopping", similar to the study of Ünal & Erciş (2006) who labeled the factor as "giving time for shopping and enjoy it".Similarly, in the study of Mitchell & Bates (1998) two factors on the recreational hedonism were loaded on a different factor and labeled as time-energy conserving, since the items indicated avoiding much time spending for shopping.This is also similar to the study of Hafstrom et al. (1992) and the study of Fan & Xia's (1998) who indicate the factor as time conscious.Besides, three items loaded on perfectionism and one item loaded on price/value consciousness in previous studies were found to load on a different factor in this study.This factor was labeled as "value seeking".In this study, the trait of price consciousness was labeled as "lower price seeking", which complies with Özgen & Kurt's (2013) study.Because items loaded on this trait mostly state low price expressions, whereas items on value seeking trait indicates the expressions such as having the best value, satisfying with value and giving much care for getting value.Before testing the hypotheses with multiple regression analysis method, Pearson correlation statistic is presented in Table 3.While correlation coefficient between 0.21 and 0.30 indicates very weak relationship, the coefficient between 0.71 and 0.80 indicates strong and the coefficient between 0.91 and 1.00 indicates very strong relationship (Nakip, 2003, p. 322).The results show weak relations between independent variables.That is, there is little or no multicollinearity in the data set.After conducting correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis is performed in order to see the causation.Indeed, Table 4 summarizes two different multiple regression models, one is for store brand choice (dependent variable) and the other one is for national brand choice (dependent variable).Consumer decision making styles are the independents variables for both models.Thus, the table shows the comparison of store brand and national brand choices based on the decision-making styles.
For multiple regression analysis, variance inflation factor (VIF) and tolerance values were calculated at recommended levels, as <10 for VIF value; and >0.1 and >0.2 for tolerance value.Thus, collinearity statistics satisfied the required levels.Besides, Durbin Watson values were calculated between 1.5 and 2.5, indicating no autocorrelation in the multiple linear regression models (Tonta, 2008).Results of multiple regression analysis, estimate, t values, significance levels and model summaries are presented in Table 4.The results of the research hypotheses reveal that four of ten hypotheses are supported for store brand choice and three are supported for national brand choice.However, there is no common decision making style affecting both consumer store and national brand food product.That is, consumers' food product choices based on national and store brand are affected by different factors.This can be indicated as one of the main results of this study.Because there is still a strong support for earlier studies indicating that the effects of different factors on store and national brand choices (Burger & Schott, 1972;Bellizzi et al., 1981;Garretson et al., 2002).
Impulsiveness/carelessness, habituation/brand loyalty, lower price seeking and recreation consciousness have significant effects on the choice of store brand food product, whereas novelty/fashion consciousness, confused by over choice and value seeking have statistically significant effects on the choice of national brand food products.Thus, H1c, H1g, H1i and H2d H2e, H2f, H2h hypotheses are supported (see these hypotheses in Table 7).
When considered the effects of decision making styles on consumers' store brand choices, lower price seeking is found to have the strongest effect (β = 0.288, t = 5.521, p<.01).That is lower price seeking consumers are more likely to choose store brand food products.Besides, consciousness of habituation or brand loyalty is one of the traits having strong effect on store brand choice (β = 0.223, t = 4.012, p<.01).In other words, habitual or brand loyal consumers are more likely to choose national brand food products.Recreation or hedonistic consciousness has also statistically significant effect on store brand choice (β = 0.150, t = 2.678, p<.01).Since the relation is positive, the more a consumer is recreational or hedonistic, the more likely he is to buy store brand.This is also one of the important findings of this study that should be evaluated.Lastly, the trait of impulsiveness or carelessness significantly affect consumers' choice on store brand food product (β = 0.106, t = 1.873, p<.10).
When the multiple regression model for national brand choice is examined, three traits are found to be effective on consumers' choices.Firstly, novelty-fashion consciousness has significant and the strongest effect on national brand food product choice (β = 0.155, t = 2.963, p<.01).Thus, consumers seeking for trendy food products and satisfying with variety might choose national brand products.Besides, confused by over choice consumers are found less likely to buy national brand food products.That is, confused by over choice has a significant but negative effect on national brand choice (β = -0.134,t = -2.303,p<.05).Lastly, the trait labeled as value seeking is also found to have significant effect on national brand choice (β = 0.101, t = 1.915, p<.10).
The other hypotheses about the effects of decision making styles on national and store brand choices received no support (see these hypotheses in table 7).
Given the results of regression analysis and H1 and H2 hypotheses were tested, independent samples t-test and one way ANOVA were used to test the H3 hypotheses.In order to see if national and store brand choices significantly differ in gender and marital status, t-test was used.When conducting independent samples t-test, Levenene's Test for Equality of Variances is evaluated to meet the assumption of equality of variance.Test results for equality of variances met the required level of significance >0.05, indicating equal variances assumed.Similarly, when conducting one way ANOVA, Test of Homogeneity of Variances were tested with Levene Statistic and the results satisfied the required level of significance >0.05.Table 5 shows the results of independent samples t-test.According to t-test results, both store and national brand food product choices differ in gender at the significance levels of p<.01 and p<.05, respectively.When compared to male consumers, females appeared more likely to prefer national brand food products, while male consumers are more likely to choose store brand food products.Marital status of the consumers has the only effect on store brand choice at the significance level of p<.05.As mean levels compared, married consumers are more likely to prefer store brand food products.
In order to see whether national and store brand choices significantly differs in demographic characteristics of age, income level, education and occupation, one way ANOVA is conducted.The results are presented in Table 6.According to the results of ANOVA, there is significant differences in the mean levels of consumers' store brand choices for their income levels (p<.05).Similar result is true for national brand choices, with the significance level of p<.01.Thus, national and store brand choices of consumers significantly differ with respect to their income levels.
One way ANOVA results also reveal that there is significant differences in the mean levels of consumers' national brand choices for age, education and occupation at the significance levels of p<.10, p<.05, p<.05 respectively.Yet, consumers' store brand food product choices do not significantly differ in these demographic characteristics.
After evaluating whether there is any evidence that the mean population differs, Tukey multiple comparison test is used to investigate which of the means are different.For education level, the most significant difference (p<.05) in national brand choices emerges from between the groups of the consumers having elementary and university education.Besides, the significant difference (p<.10) between age groups emerges from 56-65 and 18-25 age levels.There is also significant difference (p< .05) in national brand choices between the consumers indicating their occupation as housewife, as tradesman and as student.
In summary, Table 7 presents all of the research hypotheses and their results.

H1
Consumer decision making styles have significant effect on the choice of national brand food products.H1a Perfectionism-high quality consciousness has a significant effect on national brand choice.H1b Brand consciousness has a significant effect on national brand choice.H1c Novelty-fashion consciousness has a significant effect on national brand choice.(Supported)H1d Recreation consciousness has a significant effect on national brand choice.H1e Lower price seeking has a significant effect on national brand choice.

H1f
Impulsiveness-carelessness has a significant effect on national brand choice.H1g Confused by over choice has a significant effect on national brand choice.(Supported)H1h Habituation-brand loyalty has a significant effect on national brand choice.

H1ı
Time spent for shopping has a significant effect on national brand choice.

H1i
Value seeking has a significant effect on store national choice.(Supported)H2 Consumer decision making styles have significant effect on the choice of store brand food products.H2a Perfectionism-high quality consciousness has a significant effect on store brand choice.H2b Brand consciousness has a significant effect on store brand choice.H2c Novelty-fashion consciousness has a significant effect on store brand choice.H2d Recreation consciousness has a significant effect on store brand choice.(Supported)H2e Lower price seeking has a significant effect on store brand choice.(Supported) H2f Impulsiveness-carelessness has a significant effect on store brand choice.(Supported)H2g Confused by over choice has a significant effect on store brand choice.H2h Habituation-brand loyalty has a significant effect on store brand choice.(Supported)H2ı Time spent for shopping has a significant effect on store brand choice.

H2i
Value seeking has a significant effect on store brand choice.

H3
National and store brand choices significantly differs in demographic characteristics (gender, marital status, age and income levels, education and occupation).
National brand choice differs in gender, age, income level, education and occupation.(Supported) Store brand choice differs in gender, marital status and income level.(Supported)

Conclusion
This study tests the significant effects of consumer decision making styles on national and store brand choices.
The results of the study reveal that consumers' national and store brand choices are affected by different decision making styles.This is one of the important results of this study, since it makes the comparison between two brands more valuable and requires different strategies to be developed.It also supports previous studies, indicating the importance of differences on store and national brand evaluations (Bellizzi et al., 1981;Garretson et al., 2002).This study fills the gap in literature by comparing consumers' national and store brand choices in the context of decision making styles.The study is expected to help retailers develop suitable strategies for national and store brand food products.Different marketing strategies for both national and store brand food products can be tailored to the characteristics of consumers.
It is revealed in this study that four factors out of ten have significant effects on consumers' store brand food product choices.These factors are determined as lower price seeking, habituation/brand loyalty, impulsiveness/carelessness and recreation consciousness.On the other hand, the factors affecting national brand food product choice are found as novelty fashion consciousness, confused by over choice and value seeking.
It is supported in this study that if consumers are sensitive to lower price and search for lower price among alternatives, they are likely to buy store brand food products.This result shows that there is still strong evidence supporting earlier studies that indicate the importance of price on store brand choice (Burger & Schott, 1972;Burton et al., 1998).The result of current study is also consistent with The Nielsen Company's report (2014), stating that more than half of consumers purchase store brand to save money.It is still advisable for retailers to position their own brands (on food products) with lower price in order to compete because lower price seeking is found as a trait having the strongest influence on store brand food products.
In consumer decision making styles literature, many studies labeled and treated price consciousness as price/value consciousness or value for money.However, there are also studies dictating and labeling lower price differently (Özgen & Kurt, 2013).Some items loaded on perfectionism and price consciousness in previous studies (Sproles & Kendall, 1986;Mitchell & Bates, 1998) are loaded on a different factor in this study.This factor is labeled as value seeking and found to have significant effect on national brand food product choice.While no significant effect of lower price is found, value seeking is found to affect national brand food product choices.That means consumers giving care to their food product purchasing, demanding to have best value and giving time for this are likely to prefer national brand on their food product choices.So, manufacturers can respond to value seeking consumers by extending their alternatives with different prices and qualities.Because comparing prices and quality of products for getting best value and spending time for shopping is one the characteristics of value seeking consumers.
This study also reveals significant relation between habituation/brand loyalty and store brand food product choice, whereas it has no significant effect on national brand choice.That is habitual consumers are more likely to prefer store brand on their food product shopping.This result also indicates the importance of loyalty on store brand choice.Besides brand loyal consumers, impulsive/careless consumers have tendency to prefer store brand food products.That is, consumers not planning and not giving so much care to their shopping of food products are likely to choose store brand.This result may be evaluated with value seeking trait.Consumers giving time for their shopping and requiring value have tendency to choose national brand, whereas impulsive consumers have tendency to choose store brand food products.
Another significant result for store brand choice is about recreation or hedonistic consciousness.Since the result reveals positive relationship, recreational/hedonistic consumers can be treated as more likely to choose store brand on their shopping of food products.That means consumers enjoying food product shopping and being pleased with this shopping will likely buy store brand.This is also one of the important findings of this study that should be evaluated.Thus, it is advisable for retailers to add hedonistic values to their brands.For example, they can design food packaging as more colored or as more alluring so that they can create purchase desire and positive emotions.
For national brand choices, novelty/fashion consciousness is found to have significant effect.That means consumers searching for food products in line with trends and willing to buy new food products will focus on national brands in stores.Indeed, marketers can use the advantage of novelty-fashion consciousness by promoting and advertising new products.Lastly, a negative relationship exists between confused by over choice and national brand food product choice.If consumers have difficulty in choosing among the alternatives, they will be more likely to avoid buying national products.
When national and store brand choices are examined with demographic characteristics, both national and store brand choices are found to differ in gender and income level.Store brand food product choice differs in marital status, whereas national brand choice differs in education and occupation.Similarly, Ailawadi et al. (2001) identified different demographic traits for store brands and national brands and advised different promotions for these two types.Thus, consumers' educational level and occupations can be more strategically used for national brand food products.Since both brand choices differ in income level, the significant effect of lower price on store brand choice should not be ignored.
In summary, consumers who mostly prefer store brand on their food product shopping can be profiled as lower price seekers, habitual/brand loyal, recreational/hedonistic and impulsive/careless.On the other hand, consumers who mostly prefer national brand food products can be profiled as novelty/fashion conscious, confused by over choice and value seekers.Thus, these different profiles require different positioning strategies for national and store brand food products.
One of the limitations of this study is to carry out the research without classifying the retail stores with different types (e.g., discount stores).In general, the research focuses on food products and does not evaluate certain food product category such as milk and milk products, juices and drinks and so on, thus indicating another limitation of the study.Future researches can make similar comparisons between different categories of food product.Apart from food products, future researches can also compare national and store brand choices on different product categories such as personal care products and cleaning products.

Table 3 .
Results of Pearson correlation

Table 4 .
Results of multiple regression analysis results

Table 5 .
Results of independent samples t-test analysis

Table 6 .
Results of one way ANOVA test