Towards A Better Understanding of the Low-Income Consumer

Research on low-income or poorer consumers and the disadvantages that they encounter in the marketplace is the focus of this paper. A number of commonly held beliefs about low-income consumers need to be challenged but since these consumers are not high priority as target markets there is little investment in the market research that might go some way to dispel them. This paper aims to challenge some of these beliefs and to suggest how this research might be further developed by drawing together research and theories from a range of disciplines including consumer research, psychology and sociological constructs.