Consumer perceived risk in the Korean mobile phone market

Purpose - Because of the increasing number of new models in the South Korean appliance market, customers are more likely to delay buying the products such as TV, mobile phone, camera, computer, and the forth. Thus, this study aims to illustrate the relationship between demographic factors and perceived risk types, supposing that Korean customers tend to postpone buying or hesitate to purchase the new version of hand sets, because of an early buying risk. Research design - In addition to existing perceived risk types: financial risk, performance risk, social risk, psychological risk, physical risk, and time risk, the authors introduced an early buying risk as a new risk type. In order to measure each variable, also, the study has employed a five-point Liker-scale. To increase research reliability and validity, the research adopted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and one-way ANOVA. Conclusions - The authors found that customers regarded an early buying risk as one of the important perceived risk types, distinguishing it from the time risk suggested by prior research, when purchasing a hand set. From a scholar's perspective, the research has made considerable contribution to the customer behavior academic world, that is to say, found early buying risk as a new risk type. Furthermore, from a practitioner's point of view, cell phone producers have to manage this risk type when developing marketing strategy. At the same time, considerable attention has to be paid to the younger generations who are more likely to perceive the early buying risk asone of important barriers to purchase cutting-edge product categories.