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Consumer Behaviour

Notes 3. Risk barrier is concerned with physical, economic, functional, or social risk for adopting
an innovation. If the intensity of perceived risk is high, consumers are likely to wait and
watch till such time that they are reasonably assured that there are no unusual risks
associated with product adoption.

14.2.5 Time Factor and Diffusion Process

Time is an important component of diffusion theory and concerns the time of adoption of an
innovation by consumers considering whether consumers are earlier or later adopters and the
rate of diffusion, that is, the speed and extent with which individuals and groups adopt the
innovation.
Time of Adoption: Everett M Rogers examined more than 500 studies on diffusion and concluded
that there are five categories of adopters classified by time of adoption:

1. Innovators
2. Early adopters
3. The early majority
4. The late majority

5. Laggards
1. Innovators constitute, on an average the first 2.5 per cent of all those consumers who adopt
the new product and are technology enthusiasts. They seem to have an eagerness bordering
almost an obsession to try new products and ideas. They are venturesome and risk takers
and willing to live with bugs and deficiencies. According to Thomas E. Weber (Why
WebTV Isn’t Quite Ready for Prime Time,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 1997), innovators
represented the primary market for the WebTV developed and marketed in 1996. By the
end of that year’s holiday season, only about 30,000 to 100,000 of the 97 million households
with TVs had purchased WebTV. Innovators tend to be younger, better educated, have
higher incomes, are cosmopolitan and active outside of their community than non-
innovators. They also tend to be less reliant on group norms, use other innovators rather
than local peers as a reference group, are more self-confident and make more extensive
use of commercial media, sales personnel and professional sources in learning of new
products.
2. Early adopters tend to be opinion leaders in local reference groups and represent, on an
average, the next 13.5 per cent who adopt the new product. They admire a technologically
new product not so much for its features as for its abilities to create a revolutionary
breakthrough in the way things are normally accomplished. Though they are not among
the earliest individuals to adopt the product, yet they adopt the product in the early stage
of its life cycle. They are successful, well educated and somewhat younger than their peers.
They tend to be more reliant on group norms and values than innovators and are also
more oriented to the local community rather than having a cosmopolitan look. They are
willing to take a calculated risk on an innovation but are concerned with failure. Early
adopters also use commercial, professional and interpersonal information sources. Since
they tend to be opinion leaders, they are likely to transmit word-of-mouth influence and,
due to this reason, they are probably the most important group in determining the success
or otherwise of the new product.
3. The early majority tend to be deliberate and cautious with respect to innovations and
represent 34.0 per cent. They look for innovations that offer incremental, predictable
improvements of an existing technology. They adopt innovations earlier than most of
their social group but only after the innovation is viewed successful with others. They

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