Factors Determining Consumer Interest in Catalogs

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to explain how consumer interest in catalogs is determined. A number of factors are identified that influence consumer interest in catalogs. These factors include a set of economic and social factors, and consumer perceived risk, demographics, and prior experience. The influence of these factors on consumer interest in catalogs is tested using data from Saudi Arabia, an emerging market. Results indicate that the economic and social factors influence consumer interest in catalogs. Also, consumer perceived risk, education, income and prior experience are related to consumer interest in catalogs, while gender and marital status are not.     

Economics of Consumer Protection: Contributions and Challenges in Estimating Consumer Injury and Evaluating Consumer Protection Policy

Journal of Consumer Policy - The author examines the role of economics in consumer protection, drawing from her experience at the U. S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has a dual mandate to...     

Canadian Perspectives on the Challenges of Consumer Bankruptcies

Consumer bankruptcies in Canada have become a major legal, economic and social phenomenon. The number of consumer bankruptcies almost tripled between 1985 and 1995 and exceeded 75,000 in 1996. The author examines the causes of the rapidly escalating number of bankruptcies and shows that there is a strong correlation between the number of consumer bankruptcies and the equally rapid growth in the volume of consumer credit. The paper rejects the argument of credit grantors and federal bankruptcy officials that going bankrupt and obtaining a discharge from one's debts has become too easy and that a high percentage of consumer bankrupts could have made a consumer proposal involving a substantial repayment of their debts.The paper also joins issue with the provisions in Bill C-5, a bill amending the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act currently before the Canadian Parliament, and criticizes the proposed amendments involving consumer bankruptcies on the ground that they ignore or misinterpret the available data, much of them generated by the Canadian Government itself.     

Cautions and Concerns in Experimental Research on the Consumer Interest

Most published consumer research presents data from surveys or other data analyses that, at best, report that certain things tend to happen at the same time. However, correlation does not mean causation; cause and effect relationships can only be concluded from controlled experiments. A key problem is that the use of experimental designs calls for various conceptual and pragmatic trade‐offs that cannot be ignored.     

The FTC's Public Interest Requirement: An Anomoly in Consumer Protection*

Proposals for consumer class actions and individual law suits have been considered by Congress during its last two sessions. Both bills sponsored by the administration condition recovery by the consumer upon successful completion of action by the FTC. FTC action, under these proposals, would be an absolute prerequisite to private recovery. Since private recovery is made to depend upon FTC action, the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission becomes critical in determining whether or not a consumer will be entitled to relief. The “Public Interest Requirement” has long been viewed by the courts as a limitation upon Commission Jurisdiction. Thus, if the administration proposals are adopted, that requirement will have to be satisfied before individual consumer recovery will be available. This article seeks to identify the elements of the public interest requirement. Both judicial opinions and the Commission's criteria are considered and evaluated.     

欧盟消费者保护体系及其借鉴

在欧盟，由于正在进程中的．欧洲统一体的建就，在消费者权益保护方面亦统一了立法标准，创制了一套完备的体系，保证欧盟的消费者在欧洲范围内得到相同力度的保护。本文拟从欧盟在消费者保护方面的制度和措施入手，从消费者享有的权利，一般产品的安全标准，特殊商品的保护，特殊商业行为的要求等方面全面阐述欧盟消费者保护体系的概况并分析其特色与缺陷。此基础上，为我国正在完善和发展的消费者权益保护制度提供一些可供借鉴的设想与建议。     

Consumer Interest and Health Reform: The Logic of Withdrawal from Managed Competition

We propose six tasks Colston Warne would urge in addressing health care reform: (1) skepticism about advertised claims, (2) independent testing and appraisal, (3) minimizing barriers to consumer access and choice, (4) maximizing quality, (5) evaluation of fairness, and (6) assessing consumer empowerment potential. Such an exercise would likely have led him and should lead us to advocate single-payer health reform. Consumers are the key to breaking through the grid-lock blocking health reform, and single payer is the key for unlocking the democratic dialogue needed for moving forward. Thus we need to stop “fighting over the bill”and instead begin building a better health system.     

Consumer Interest Litigation: A Case Study of Nader v. Allegheny Airlines

The Nader case highlights the related problems of airline “overbooking” and passenger “no shows,” and raises the question of what public policy should be in this area. The paper analyzes the efficiency and equity aspects of Nader's attempt to eliminate overbooking. It also focuses attention on the interplay of litigation and regulation as instruments of economic policy change.     

Consumer Religiosity: Consequences for Consumer Activism in the United States

In recent times, organizations have experienced consumer backlash as a result of decisions to support controversial causes. To date, little research has attempted to explain consumers’ negative response as a function of religion. This study addresses that gap in the literature and examines consumer religious commitment and Christian consumers’ conservative beliefs in the United States as motivating factors for consumer activist behavior and boycott participation. Findings from a national sample of 531 consumers suggest that consumers evaluate seller’s actions and form ethical judgments. These judgments are a major explanatory variable in consumers’ voice complaints, third-party complaint intentions, and boycott intentions.     

Changing Consumer Preferences in Emerging Markets: Food Market Challenges in Central Mexico

As incomes in emerging markets grow, consumers’ ability to break from former food consumption patterns and introduce new foods or conveniences grows as well. While this general principle is widely accepted, the path of such introductions is not identical worldwide. In this study, we explore how consumers in an advanced emerging market have identified with their current food options, including open-air markets v. supermarkets, and simple v. processed alternatives. Using focus groups, we find that Mexican consumers have strong ties to traditions in food preparation while also showing interest in modern food conveniences. Using product adoption theory, we show that consumers exhibit expected traits of innovation resistance, social contagion influence, and consumption innovativeness, but with specific local variation, including problems with trust, expectations of government action (paternalismo), and considerable definitional confusion. Foreign marketers wishing to access the growing Mexican market should account for these differences from broader product adoption theory.     

Consumer vulnerability and complaint handling: Challenges,opportunities and dispute system design

Effectively designed complaint handling systems play a key role in enabling vulnerable consumers to complain and obtain redress. This article examines current research into consumer vulnerability, highlighting its multidimensional and expansive nature. Contemporary understandings of consumer vulnerability recognize that the interaction between a wide range of market and consumer characteristics can combine to place any individual at risk of vulnerability. While this broad definition of consumer vulnerability reflects the complex reality of consumers’ experiences, it poses a key challenge for designers of complaint handling systems: how can they identify and respond to an issue which can potentially affect everyone? Drawing on current research and practice in the United Kingdom and Australia, the article analyses the impact of consumer vulnerability on third party dispute resolution schemes and considers the role these complaint handling organizations can play in supporting their complainants. Third party complaint handling organizations, including a range of Alternative Dispute Resolution services such as ombudsman organizations, can play a key role in increasing access to justice for vulnerable consumer groups and provide specific assistance for individual complainants during the process. It is an opportune time to review whether the needs of consumers at risk of vulnerability are being met within complaint processes and the extent to which third party complaint handlers support those who are most vulnerable to seek redress. Empowering vulnerable consumers to complain presents specific challenges. The article discusses the application of a new model of consumer dispute system design to show how complaint handling organizations can meet the needs of the most vulnerable consumers throughout the process.     

Discriminant Analysis of Consumer Interest in Buying Locally Produced Foods

In the wake of Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK, upstream operators in the agrifood sector are being encouraged to undertake more direct marketing of their products. However, little is known about consumer interest in buying local food, and the factors that might influence a positive response. Drawing from the literature on ethical and environmentally responsible consumer behaviour, interest in local food is conceptualised as being related to attitudinal, situational and demographic factors. Discriminant analysis of responses to a survey of shoppers in the north of England finds that attitudinal factors tend to explain variations in local food interest better than demographic factors. In addition, situational factors of urban/rural residency and degree of involvement with farming are also strong discriminators. However, as importance ratings of food choice attributes such as low price and intrinsic quality did not differ significantly according to interest levels in local food, the results imply that even highly interested consumers have pragmatic expectations about local food products that need to be met for marketing strategies to be successful.     

第三方资助仲裁对仲裁员独立性的挑战与防范

第三方出资者与仲裁裁决的直接经济利益联系可能导致仲裁员的利益发生冲突,而资助协议中的保密条款又很容易使这种利益冲突被隐瞒而有损仲裁程序的正当性。因此,有必要建立起一套强制性的披露制度,要求被资助者必须主动披露存在第三方资助的事实和出资者的姓名或名称;关于资助协议的披露与否则应按举证标准判断,只有当特定性、相关性和实质性都满足时才能作出披露的指示。通常,履行披露义务的主体是受资助者和仲裁员,但当受资助者没有披露时,知情的代理律师也应根据职业道德和行为规范向其他各方当事人和仲裁庭作出补充披露。     

Enduring Attitudes and Contextual Interest: When and Why Attitude Surveys Still Matter in the Online Consumer Decision Journey

Consumers leave traces of key interest to managers on their journey to purchase. Next to traditional survey-based attitudes, readily available online metrics now show aggregate consumer actions. But how do survey response metrics and online action metrics relate to each other? To what extent do they explain and predict brand sales across consumer categories? This article shows that surveys and online behavior provide complementary information for brand managers. Times series data for 32 brands in 14 categories reveal low correlations but substantial dual causality between survey metrics and online actions. Combining both types of metrics greatly increases the model's power to explain and predict brand sales in low-involvement categories. By contrast, high-involvement categories do not gain much from adding survey-based attitudes to a model including online behavior metrics. The authors synthesize these generalizations in a new framework relating enduring attitudes to the contextual interest expressed by online actions. This new framework helps managers assess both types of metrics to drive brand performance depending on whether their goal is short-term sales or long-term brand health.     

Consumer Acumen: Augmenting Consumer Literacy

Appreciating that some consumer scholars are expressing frustration with the limitations of consumer literacy, this article offers the additional construct of consumer acumen (i.e., an astute, penetrating mind and intellect). After discussing consumer confidence in a global recession and emergent post‐recession consumer segments (reflecting the recession's psychological toll), consumer acumen, modeled after the emergent literature on business acumen, is defined, including six proposed dimensions. Consumer acumen augments consumer literacy with keen, penetrating consumer intelligence that informs quick perception and discernment of changing economic contexts. Consumer acumen is a foundational competency for the future, enabling people to better function in the post‐recession economy.