An Investigation into the Order of the Brand Choice Process

This paper investigates the order of the brand choice process at the individual family level using a variety of tests: t, likelihood ratio, binomial runs, and multinomial runs tests. The test of stationarity developed permits separate analyses for stationary and nonstationary purchase sequences. Our analyses indicate that the purchase sequences of a majority of stationary consumers are consistent with the zero-order assumption. This result is observed for all the nine frequently-bought packaged goods studied with the use of panel data and for a product category (soft drinks) using experimental data.