How Resourceful Consumers Identify New Uses for Old Products

Abstract

Resourceful consumers often identify alternative uses for products to save money, to save time, or to decrease waste. A national sample of 402 American consumers showed who these consumers are, how they identify these safe new uses, and why they do so. In general, these resourceful consumers tended to be educated, health-conscious, convenience-oriented, and not necessarily budget-constrained. The need for convenience frequently motivated these consumers to focus more on the abstract benefits of a product instead of focusing on the traditional situation in which it is used. Indeed, unlike Depression-era parents or grandparents who identified alternative product uses to save money, today’s resourceful consumers identify them to save time.

Keywords: product usage, innovation, reuse, resourceful consumers, convenience, consumer behavior, consumer research