During purchases, consumers develop intentions to purchase a product but when it comes to actual purchase, they change their behaviour and purchase a different product.
I recommend measuring population proportions rather than individual consistency, as much behaviour is probabilistic. So if you have a 50% change of buying, and then don't buy, it is difficult to say this is inconsistent. But if you expect 50% of the population to buy, and only 30% do so, then you can identify inconsistency.
My own work Wright and MacRae (2007) is probably still the most recent and relevant in this area. If you are interested in intention-behaviour consistency read Kraus (1995). If you are interested in sources of error in intention measurement read Azjen's work, particularly on TACT. If you interested in the details of the probabilistic issues, read Morrison (1979).
http://chuang.epage.au.edu.tw/ezfiles/168/1168/attach/20/pta_41176_7688352_57138.pdf
Kraus, S. J. (1995). Attitudes and the prediction of behavior: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 21(1), 58-75.
Morrison, D. G. (1979). Purchase intentions and purchase behavior. The Journal of Marketing, 65-74.
Article Bias and variability in purchase intention scales
Dear Vishal
first of all I must underline that you cannot measure customer behhaviour without interviewing customers. E.business can provide detailed analytics regarding who looked at which page or product for how long, etc. etc. but you cannot derive from this a clear statement regarding the real buyer intention.
Second statement, like Malcolm Wright I recommend as well to look at large groups of customers rather that single people.
So, you have to directly interview a large amounbt of people, and the right moment to do so is immediately after they have taken a specific decision, that is either to buy or not do buy. This moment is when they are exiting a (physical or informational shop).
Third, you should clearly state a clear grid of statuses and decisions that you can use in order to prompt the interviewee response, such as:
a). when you entered the point of sale were you decided to buy something or not?
b). If you were, what did you have in mind? (e.g. a function; a brand; a product; a budget; ..)
c). Now that you're exiting the point of sale did you actually execute the purchase? (yes, no)
d). If yes, did you buy exactly the function / brand / product or did you spend exectly the same budget ytou had in mind? (yes, no)
e). And if you have chainged your mind, why you did so? (too expensive; looked good but was not; not available; ...)
By combining the information collected by means of the above grid of questions applied to a sufficient amount of customers, you can build a sound statistical model of customers behaviour. The "sufficient amount" might vary a lot depending on how focused or generic is your analysis. Better to ask a statistician.
I have done sich kind of research some years ago in the printing, white goods and apparel industries. Please find some references below:
The integrated management of logistic chains in the white goods industry. A field research in Italy
M Perona, R Cigolini, M Adani, R Biondi, S Guzzetti, R Jenna, M Chessa, ...
International Journal of Production Economics 69 (2), 227-238
A New Customer-Oriented Methodology to Evaluate Supply Chain Lost Sales Costs Due to Stockout in Consumer Goods Sectors
M Perona
Cost management in supply chains, 289-307
Thank you, good luck!
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