What are the features of High Involvement Product (HIP)?

A high involvement product is a product where extensive thought process is involved and the consumer considers a lot of variables before finally making a purchase decision. Many times, high involvement products involve multiple influencers who influence a buyer to buy a product. For instance, when a person wishes to purchase a BMW car, he would involve his family members, friends and other to take review of cars. He would also browse on internet about features of that car. After getting all the information he would purchase a car. Such products show personality, standard and lifestyle of customers.

Features of High Involvement Product (HIP) are:

1. High Price

The high involvement products are of high price. Because of high price, the consumer thinks multiple times before buying such product. Eg. Purchasing house, car, expensive watches, perfumes etc. are of higher price and so it requires higher involvement.

2. Differentiation is Important

The high involvement products require differentiation between the products. For instance, Macbook pro V/S Dell XPS 13 are having lot of points differentiating them and these differentiating factors are needed. These factors create enough value to instigate the consumer in making a decision.

3. Customer Perceived Risk

Due to high price and higher customer expectations from high involved products, there is a perceived risk involved in purchase of such products. What if you purchase a product and it does not work as per your expectations even after investing a large amount of money?

4. Available Information / Company Communications

The consumer seeks out more information about the product before the purchase. For instance when one want to purchase a Macbook, he would find out the difference between a Macbook and a windows laptop. There are many websites which enable comparison between products. Similarly, there are many review sites which compare televisions, high end cars, consumer appliances or anything else. These review sites give a lot of additional information of the product, which help the consumer in decision making. Not only websites, E-brochures, printed brochures,E-commercepages can all help the customer in gathering information about the product. The more information the customer has, the more likely he is going to purchase the product. So it is the job of the marketing manager of an organization to ensure marketing communications is upto mark and that the users are well informed.

5. After Sales Service

Many times customers don’t buy high involved products because its after sales service is poor. Eg. A car which does not have its spare parts available in India may not be preferred by the customers. The better the after sales service and customer satisfaction, the more is the chance of a high involvement product being sold off again and again.

6. Repeat Purchase

Consumer may not repeat purchase of the high involvement products in short period of time. Eg. A middle class consumer bought a car. He would use that car at least for 10-15 years. He would not immediately make decision of purchasing another car.