The Quality Dimensions of Internet Retail Food Purchasing

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study examines relevant factors affecting consumers' evaluation of product and service quality in the context of Internet retail food purchasing. A total of 489 anecdotes, written by online consumers based on their own shopping experience, were collected and content analyzed. In turn, 18 quality dimensions and 58 sub-attributes were identified. The asymmetric effect of positive and negative attribute-level performances on consumer dis/satisfaction was discussed. The impact of two delivery strategies on consumers' perceived quality was also examined. Finally, managerial implications and recommendations were provided in order to pave the way for possible improvement of the quality of Internet retail food purchasing and, in turn, consumer satisfaction.     

Consumers’ perception of reduced calorie meals: How low is “Low-Calorie”?

ABSTRACT

With consumers becoming increasingly health conscious, the demand for reduced calorie food has significantly increased over the years. However, the definition of low-calorie food remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate consumers’ perception of reduced calorie meals, from the perspective of the maximum calorie level that consumers would consider as “low-calorie.” Survey data were collected using MTurk. In addition to respondents’ perception of the calorie count of low-calorie food when eating out and eating at home, respondents’ attitude toward low-calorie food, behaviors about consuming low-calorie food and exercise frequency, and demographic information were also assessed in the survey. The results demonstrate that consumers’ calorie perception of low-calorie food served in restaurants is consistent among different types of restaurants. Moreover, consumers believe that a low-calorie meal served in restaurants should be under 367 calories for breakfast, 500 calories for lunch, and 677 calories for dinner. Lastly, consumers perceive home-cooked meals to be lower in calories than restaurant food. This study is the first attempt to explore consumers’ definition of a low-calorie meal served in restaurants. The findings will provide guidance to restaurant operators in designing menus, and help policymakers better understand the ongoing need to develop a sound and comprehensive definition for the term “low-calorie.”     

Calorie information effects on consumers' food choices: Sources of observed gender heterogeneity

A larger portion of males is overweight than is females. Females' food choices in comparison to those of males reflect the greater importance that females attribute to health and physical appearance; their more complex attitude toward risk; the greater esteem in which they hold home-cooked food; and sociological factors. This paper explores the variables that affect consumers' food choices, shedding light specifically on the choice process and analyzing whether gender affects predispositions toward foods, perceptions, choice processes, or all three. Perceptions and choice processes based on memory judgments serve only as a benchmark used to compare choices consumers make under calorie information. The results of two experiments wherein the researchers exposed subjects to two forms of calorie information on three fast food items suggest that differences in perceptions of foods' healthfulness and taste aspects account for gender differences in memory-based choices. In addition to this baseline difference in perceptions, a gender difference in reaction to calorie information in terms of consumers' behavior exists. While calorie information affected both perceptions and choice processes for females, information changed the perceptions of food only for males.     

Food for Thought: How Will the Nutrition Labeling of Quick Service Restaurant Menu Items Influence Consumers’ Product Evaluations, Purchase Intentions, and Choices?

Within the context of quick service restaurant meals, three studies (a consumer diary study, web-based experiment, and longitudinal experiment) examine how accurately consumers estimate calorie, fat, and sodium content and explore how objective nutrition information may influence product evaluations, perceptions, and purchase intentions. The results indicate that many consumers have little understanding of the calorie, fat, and sodium levels of many typical quick service meals, and this is especially true for less healthful meals. Consistent with rationale drawn from the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm, results demonstrate that menu-based nutrition information provision negatively influences consumers’ responses when that information is less favorable than expected. Findings suggest that the relationship between actual and expected nutrition levels drives responses, rather than the disclosure of information per se. Since these relationships can vary both within and between restaurants, results suggest that the effects of mandated nutrition information disclosure may not be uniform across the industry.     

Eating out,nutrition, education and the consumer: a case study from Alabama

Increasingly, there is agreement that the hospitality industry, particularly the restaurant sector, can significantly impact people's eating behaviour. This impact includes the nutritional intake of meals many restaurants sell that may lead to problems such as the growing obesity epidemic. This preliminary study investigates consumers' attitudes towards their eating out experience as it relates to their reasons for eating out and the importance that nutrition may place in their experience when eating out. Findings suggest differences in consumer attitudes towards these issues based on their gender, educational achievement level and type of restaurant they frequent. Nutritional awareness and education strategies do not appear to be reaching groups that are more exposed and/or more prone to unhealthier food consumption. Overall, consumers do not seem interested in education or involvement in healthier consumption.     

Perceptions that matter: perceptual antecedents and moderators of healthy food consumption

Unhealthy eating patterns present in most Western countries pose a serious threat to economic welfare and have severe consequences for the health and quality of life of the individual consumer. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a conceptual model for understanding how health authorities and marketers can affect consumption of healthy food – and ultimately body mass index (BMI) – by addressing perceptual antecedents of consumers' involvement and health competencies. A qualitative (n = 16) pilot study and a consumer panel survey (n = 599) assisted in completing this task. The obtained structural equation modelling results confirmed that increasing consumers' competencies concerning healthy food consumption may improve the healthiness of their food behaviour, and ultimately reduce their BMI. Notably, these effects may occur even for consumers who perceive healthy food consumption to be a challenge. Our results also revealed that it may be problematic to improve health competencies for food consumers who are less involved in healthy food consumption. However, our study shows that two perceptual factors, ‘personal food identity’ (the extent to which consumers believe that their health identity is linked to their food behaviour) and ‘unhealthy food taste belief’ (the extent to which consumers believe that unhealthy food is more enjoyable and tastier than healthy food), may assist health authorities and marketers in increasing consumers' involvement in healthy food consumption.     

The effect of knowledge types on consumer‐perceived risk and adoption of genetically modified foods

Scientists have asserted that genetically modified (GM) food offers financial, environmental, health, and quality benefits to society, but the realization of such benefits depends on consumer acceptance of this new technology. Consumer concerns about GM food raise questions about what consumers know about GM food and to what extent this knowledge translates into their evaluations of GM products. The present research empirically examines the effect of both objective and subjective knowledge on perceived risk and, in turn, key consumer behaviors associated with GM food. The results reveal that objective knowledge about GM food significantly reduces performance and psychological risks, whereas subjective knowledge influences only physical risk, and the valence of that impact depends on the level of the consumer's objective knowledge. Furthermore, different risk types enhance consumers' information search and reduce their propensity to buy GM food. The overall findings thus suggest the need for cooperation among government, scientific institutions, and the food industry to foster effective communication strategies that increase consumers' objective knowledge, reduce their risk perceptions, and encourage consumer adoptions of GM technology. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Consumer Perceptions of Health Claims in Advertisements and on Food Labels

It has been hypothesized that consumers are more skeptical of health claims made in food ads than of health claims made on food labels. Therefore, the current research explores consumers' skepticism of health claims when the source of such claims is identified as a food ad or a food label. The study also examines whether consumers' beliefs are affected by nutrition information on food labels and whether health claims that have been challenged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and by consumer groups are more likely to affect consumers' beliefs than are unchallenged health claims. The findings have implications for understanding the role of education in reducing consumer misperceptions of health claims.     

Compromise and attraction effects in food choice

Food choices are being implicated as a key driver in the rising rates of obesity, as well as associated with other health problems that impact both individuals and society as a whole (Cawley and Meyerhoefer). Calorie listings, whether provided on menus or packaged goods, increase consumer's awareness of the calories in potential food choices and, as a result, make consumers more likely to evaluate a product relative to others in the choice set based on this attribute (e.g. choosing a higher or lower calorie option). In this research, we explore whether the provision of calorie information, when presented in the context of other food options, will result in (1) compromise effects, whereby individuals select intermediate (or middle) options in a choice set, and (2) attraction effects, whereby individuals gravitate towards items that are similar to others but also dominate these items in the choice set. In two experimental studies we find evidence for the compromise effect and the attraction effect. These findings extend work demonstrating that the context in which food decisions occur can impact choice, and builds on existing knowledge regarding the consequences of providing calorie information for food items. Although most work has shown that making calories salient has a beneficial impact on the accuracy of consumer calorie estimates and food choice, in this work we show that the compromise and attraction effects – two well‐established findings in decision‐making literature – can actually shift consumers to either higher or lower calorie options. This carries important implications for consumers making choices in information‐rich choice environments.     

The Effect of Information on Willingness to Pay for Canned Tuna Fish with Different Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Certification: A Pilot Study

The objective of this study was to assess the role of information in consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for food products with corporate social responsibility (CSR) certification. The item used for the experimental design was canned tuna fish, a product on the market that is already exhibiting various kinds of certification related to social and environmental attributes. Two different kinds of certifications were examined, namely Friend of the Sea, which involves environmental aspects, and SA8000, related to workers' rights and more general social attributes. We implemented experimental auctions, taking into account three information treatments. The initial findings show that the WTP for both CSR labels is higher than the WTP for tuna fish without any CSR certification. Nevertheless, the information provided on CSR certification did not change consumers' WTP among the certification schemes. Our findings could also serve to fine‐tune marketing strategies to consumer preferences and determine which CSR activities are worth undertaking.     

Why Consumers in Developing Countries Prefer Foreign Brands: A Study of Japanese Brands in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Building on social-identity theory, the research develops a model for understanding of the impact of consumer identification with a nation on consumers' brand evaluations. It posits that developing-country consumers' identification with a foreign (developed) nation influences three factors—consumer-based brand equity, consumer-based country image, and consumer-based brand credibility. The research was informed by data from 400 Vietnamese consumers in relation to two Japanese brands Sony and Honda and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings show that Vietnamese (developing-country) consumers prefer Japanese (developed-country) brands over domestic brands, when these consumers identify with the developed nation.     

A Study of Consumers' Response to Quick Service Restaurants' Healthy Menu Items

Abstract

Nutritional choices play an important role in the increasing prevalence of overweight and obese adults and children. American consumers are pressuring restaurant companies to offer healthier restaurant menu options. The current study uses a content analysis of the literature to explain consumers' attitudes toward nutrition and healthy eating and a repeated measures ANOVA of key menu items from 31 quick service hamburger restaurants to analyze actual consumer eating behavior. Based on the content analysis, it was determined that consumer attitudes regarding healthy eating have declined in the last twenty years. The statistical analysis of the data found a significant increase in the amount of “healthy” menu items purchased and a statistically significant decrease in the number of side items purchased over the past three years. The number of regular entrée menu items purchased did not change. Implications for practice in the restaurant industry and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Visual complexity of eco-labels and product evaluations in online setting: Is simple always better?

Noticeable and comprehensible eco-labels are needed to promote sustainable products. So far, researchers have mostly studied consumers' evaluations of eco-labels, without analyzing eco-label's visual complexity. Through two experimental studies this paper proposes that consumers' evaluations of sustainable products increase when zoom-in feature provided in online stores, and they are labelled through eco-labels that have high design and low feature complexity due to increased perceptual fluency. The findings demonstrate that while design complexity increases consumer product evaluations due to increased perceptual fluency, feature complexity increases - instead of decreases – consumers' evaluations due to conceptual – and not perceptual – fluency. Consequently, it is advised to design and adapt eco-labels easy-to-understand, visually eye-catching and highly visible (i.e., in large size) to enhance ease of processing and increase product evaluations.     

The Perceived Value of Value Meals

Abstract

This study provides a new explanation as to why restaurants frequently sell value meals along with the meals' components separately. We argue that beyond the traditional economic model of extracting the surplus from customers with extreme valuation for particular dishes, mixed bundling unintentionally creates a decoy price effect. With mixed bundling, the value meal might seem more attractive than with pure bundling, generating more profits for the restaurant. The combination of extracting additional consumer surplus and the increased demand due to decoy pricing makes the mixed bundling strategy a highly valuable marketing tool for restaurants. We test the theory by measuring subjects' willingness to pay for value meals while varying the prices of the meal's components that appear separately on the menu. The results strongly support our prediction that customers' willingness to pay for a value meal can be manipulated by controlling the price of the components.     

Do They Have Your Number? Understanding the Moderating Role of Format Effects and Consumer Numeracy for Quantitative Front‐of‐Package Nutrition Claims

Front‐of‐package (FOP) nutrient content claims are often used by food manufacturers to promote the nutrition levels of their products. In this research, two studies examine the influence of the numerical format (either percentages or absolute numbers) presented on FOP‐reduced nutrient content claims and the moderating influence of consumers' numeracy levels (i.e., consumers' ability to interpret numbers). Low numerate consumers are more strongly influenced by the label's numerical format, but results differ across nutrition attributes linked to cardiovascular disease risk. For saturated fat, low numerate consumers had more favorable evaluations of the product that had a label presented in a percent format compared to an absolute unit format. In contrast, the moderating effect of numeracy had little effect on the format of reduced sodium claims. Implications are offered for policymakers, consumer researchers, and food manufacturers .     

Impact of visual information on online consumer review behavior: Evidence from a hotel booking website

The types and amount of visual and textual information differently influence consumers' responses towards experiential products. This research empirically examines the impact of visual information on consumers' online review behaviors by analyzing online data collected from hotel booking website Agoda.com. The empirical results indicate that visual information has a positive impact on consumers’ responses, which are measured through online review ratings and sentiment. This result is observed only when various types of visual information such as, photos of rooms, facilities, views, and restaurants, are provided. However, consumer responses tend to be negative as the number of photos, regardless of type, increases.     

Mandatory Calorie Disclosure: A Comprehensive Analysis of Its Effect on Consumers and Retailers

In 2018 restaurants in the United States will need to provide calorie information on their menus as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In the present research, we examine the efficacy of this legislation in reducing restaurant based food calorie consumption. Specifically, we explore the likely effect of the new policy on both the supply and demand side, that is, consumer and retailer behaviors. To achieve this, two studies are included in this research: a meta-analysis of 186 studies investigating the effect of calorie disclosure on calories selected, and a meta-analysis of 41 studies examining the effect of calorie disclosure on calories offered by retailers. Across these two studies we reveal a significant and unequivocal calorie disclosure effect for menu labels; disclosure results in both fewer calories selected (?27 Calories) and fewer calories offered by retailers (?15 Calories).     

A Study of Factors Influencing Parental Patronage of Quick Service Restaurants

Summary

This study identified factors influencing parental quick service restaurant patronage. Results indicated that parents are influenced to patronize quick service restaurants most often by speed of service, menus that offered their childrens' favorite food items, and parents' lack of time for meal preparation at home. Children preferred French fries, pizza, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and chicken nuggets at quick service restaurants. French fries, the favorite childrens' fast food menu selection, was ranked by respondents as one of the least healthy food items, while mashed potatoes, one of childrens' least favorite fast food menu selections, was perceived to be one of the healthier food selections by parents. Restaurateurs were encouraged to develop newer, healthier methods of preparing these popular menu items while offering more nutritious menu selections for children.     

Consumer Concerns Relating to Food Labeling and Trust—Australian Governance Actors Respond

This study aims to report and critically analyze the responses of governance actors to a set of consumers' concerns relating to food labeling, and by doing so describe how these actors construct both consumer perspectives and the food policy environment in which they work. Fifteen food‐labeling governance actors in Australia and New Zealand were asked to view an online presentation of the findings from a previous study exploring consumer perspectives on food labeling and trust before completing a one‐hour, in‐depth, semi‐structured interview. Colebatch's social constructionist perspective on policy was adopted in the analysis. Participants used their own constructions of Australian food policy, the role of labeling and consumer trust as a means to minimize the consumer concerns. Inadequate critical engagement with the moral dimension of consumer concerns is a core driver of the inertia demonstrated in the Australian government's approach to addressing consumer concerns regarding food matters.     

Students' patronage and views on the operations and services of food vendors

Abstract Vendors of meals and snacks, granted the realities of the present changing economic and social lifestyles, will continue to feed large numbers of people despite the insanitary conditions under which most of them operate. This study sought to find out the degree of patronage of food sold by vendors, items purchased, reasons for patronizing, views and opinions on the services patronized. Two-hundred and forty-five students resident in five halls at the University of Ghana completed a self-administered questionnaire each. Eighty-six per cent purchased cooked meals and snacks regularly from vendors. Over two-thirds consumed their meals at the selling sites. However, the services and facilities offered by vendors were judged as inadequate and poor. Nineteen per cent reported having suffered diarrhoea, stomach aches, indigestion and other gastrointestinal problems as a result of eating vendored foods. Three outstanding reasons emerged for the high patronage of vendored foods. They are food always being available (69%); food being cheaper (62%); and more variety to choose from (42%). These findings portray the great influence of money and time on consumer choice of food in our present harsh economic environment. Patrons indicated several unhealthy practices by vendors that pose health threats to patrons. These observations together with several recommendations made regarding the safe handling of food, water and the environment indicate consumers' awareness of the need for safe delivery of the food they consume. There is the urgent need therefore to organize and train vendors, pass a food law, supervise operations of vendors and also educate consumers to choose only safe food and water and insist on a clean food environment.