Consumer acceptance of fatty spreads

The effect of consumer trends on the purchase of reduced fat products in general and fatty spreads in particular are discussed. A variety of fatty spreads with fat levels ranging from 20 to 80% were assessed by cone penetration measurements and sensory assessments. The results indicated that butter had poor spreadability characteristics at 5° and 10°, while mechanically worked butter (spreadeasy butter) gave a significantly different texture profile, as measured by the Instron Model 1000. This butter type was assessed as being spreadable at 10° by the sensory panelists and by cone penetrometry. Comparable values of hardness were obtained using data obtained by cone penetrometry and texture profile analysis from the Instron. Low fat spreads (fat levels 25–39%) produced desirable spreadability characteristics using both objective and subjective methods of assessment. Sunflower oil-based spreads and very low fat spreads, i.e. ≦ 25% fat, were assessed as being soft and oily. The results overall indicated that the use of a cone penetrometer and the subsequent calculation of a yield value gave, using Haighton's seven-point scale, a good indication of spreadability characteristics.     

Consumer e-shopping acceptance: Antecedents in a technology acceptance model

This study integrates e-shopping quality, enjoyment, and trust into a technology acceptance model (TAM) to understand consumer acceptance of e-shopping. Online surveys with college students (n = 298) were conducted. E-shopping quality for apparel products consists of four dimensions: web site design, customer service, privacy/security, and atmospheric/experiential. A structural equation model reveals that e-shopping quality determines perceptions of usefulness, trust, and enjoyment, which in turn influence consumers' attitudes toward e-shopping. Consumer perceptions of usefulness and attitude toward e-shopping influence intention to shop online, while perceived ease of use does not influence attitude toward e-shopping. Shopping enjoyment and trust play significant roles in consumers' adoption of e-shopping. This study provides important implications for e-tailers whose web site developers must keep in mind that customers are not only web users with trust/safety and information needs, but also shoppers with service and experiential needs.     

Consumer acceptance of the mobile Internet

Technological innovations are often designed to help consumers save time. However, some consumers refuse to use innovations and downgrade their usability with increasing usage time. The purpose of this research is to find out how consumers?? personality in younger (vs. older) men (vs. women) affects behavioral choices of the mobile Internet, as an example of new technology, and how usage time affects perceived ease of use of innovative (vs. established) media. The study shows that innovativeness, low desire for social contact, and technology optimism, in interaction with demographics, determine whether consumers choose mobile Internet services over substitutes. Job-related dependency on technology and gender directly affect choice behavior. The study reveals that ease of use is downgraded as more time is spent using the mobile Internet, whereas there is no such relation for established media. The results help explain overoptimistic forecasts that were made in the field of technology acceptance.     

Consumer acceptance of low-fat and fat-substituted dairy products

The continued expansion of the low-fat market, coupled with extensive dietary guidelines given to consumers, has not yet appeared to have had the desired effect. Evidence suggests that the majority of U.K. consumers are still not prepared to sacrifice the taste and quality of a food for any perceived health benefits. This is particularly evident in the low-fat hard cheese market, which has not reached the same level of consumption as other diary based products. The key would appear to be in gaining an optimum balance between health and taste, yet the latter is often compromised by manufacturers who are under constant pressure to further reduce the fat levels of their products. A potential solution may be the development and inclusion of fat substitutes, as investigated in this study. Research consisted of two main elements. Firstly, lower fat cheese incorporating a fat substitute was developed and compared with other products currently on the market using sensory analysis. A questionnaire was then utilized to further assess the degree of consumer acceptance of this trend. Substitute use would appear to have potential in permitting a further reduction in fat levels, while retaining a measure of quality — an essential element if longer term dietary guidelines are to be achieved.     

Consumer acceptance of beef with different levels of marbling

Beef striploin steak disappearance from the retail counters of six stores in three different Canadian provinces was monitored over two consecutive weekends. Beef consumers in three Canadian cities were subsequently interviewed and requested to evaluate steaks representative of four different marbling levels, both visually and organoleptically. There was a clear consumer preference at the point of purchase or visual assessment for steaks with traces of marbling, and discrimination against steaks with modest marbling, and a preference for steaks with slight marbling over steaks with small marbling. However, during organoleptic testing opposite preferences were evident. Therefore, most consumers desire both leanness and palatability in beef. However, these qualities are not necessarily coincidental.     

Consumer religious commitment's influence on ecocentric attitudes and behavior

A host of environmental issues are now of concern to many consumers, though efforts by marketing practitioners, researchers, and public policy officials to affect behavioral change among consumers have been marginal. Further, research investigating the influence of consumers' general religiosity as an antecedent to ecocentric attitudes and behaviors yields mixed results. In this study, the authors examine the antecedent role of a specific form of religiosity, intrapersonal religious commitment, on a specific environmental worldview, ecocentric attitude, and six wide-ranging environmental consumer behaviors from a socio-psychological viewpoint.     

Consumer acceptance of quick-cooking rice as food for use in a disaster

The consumer acceptability of a Philippine cultivar quick-cooking rice (QCR) as food for use in a disaster was studied. Test feeding in an evacuation centre involved random selection of 50 young adults and adult evacuees, rehydration of QCR and distribution of test rice samples for sensory evaluation test. The sensory evaluation results showed that more than 90% of the evacuee participants found the colour, texture, taste and overall qualities of the rehydrated QCR to be acceptable. Eighty per cent of the participants described the rehydrated rice to be adequately soft and neither undercooked nor overcooked. The test QCR samples were described by the community kitchen personnel of the evacuation centre as easy to prepare, requiring minimum cooking time and exhibiting homogeneity in doneness when cooked.     

Consumer acceptance of food irradiation: a test of the recreancy theorem

Consumers living in both developed and developing nations rely upon foods that have been produced and processed in many countries and in a wide variety of ways. Therefore, it is not surprising that they express concerns about the safety of their food supplies. A technology proposed to improve consumer trust in food safety is irradiation. Despite extensive education efforts and endorsements given by many health‐related organizations worldwide, food irradiation has been slow to gain widespread acceptance. This ineffectiveness of diffusion efforts might indicate a need to broaden our theoretical perspectives of consumer acceptance of controversial technologies. Most theoretical approaches explain acceptance primarily as a function of perceived risks associated with a technology. The recreancy theorem, in contrast, explains acceptance as a function of public trust in societal institutions to effectively manage a technology. This study investigated the extent to which the recreancy theorem explained acceptance of food irradiation by US consumers, while statistically controlling for perceived risk and social‐demographic variables. The study used a longitudinal field design to survey one adult each in 116 households located in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area during the first large‐scale market test of irradiated food. The results indicate that the recreancy theorem might provide a valid conceptual approach to gaining a broader understanding of consumer acceptance of controversial new technologies.     

The impact of customer awareness of manufacturer name disclosure on retail brand attitudes and loyalty in Korea

This paper explores the impact of exposing the name of the manufacturer on a retail brand product upon national brand loyalty, retail brand loyalty and store loyalty, It does so by exploring customer attitudes towards retail brands in South Korea, where there is a legal requirement for retail brands to portray the manufacturer׳s name. For international retailers entering markets where such disclosure is a legal requirement an understanding of the implications of this for retail brand management is essential. The findings suggest that in the Korean case revealing the name of the manufacturer who supplies the retail brand on the product packaging has a positive influence on attitudes towards retail brands, although it did not mitigate the perceived risks held by customers towards retail brand products in general.     

An acceptance model for an Internet protocol television service in Korea with prior experience as a moderator

This study examines the effect of users' prior experience on the adoption behaviour in the Internet protocol television (IP TV) service domains. This article proposes a new acceptance model for an IP TV service considering the moderating effect of experience and verifies the model with an empirical study. Respondents are classified into either experienced or inexperienced groups according to their prior experience with the IP TV service. The results indicate that motivational factors used in our study affect behavioural intention. In addition, this study shows that the influence of extrinsic motivational factors on the behavioural intention are stronger for the experienced group than the inexperienced group and the influence of intrinsic motivational factors on the behavioural intention are stronger for the inexperienced group than the experienced group. This article concludes with study implications, as well as limitations and future research directions.     

Cultural Differences in Consumer Responses to Celebrities Acting Immorally: A Comparison of the United States and South Korea

Journal of Business Ethics - Scandals involving celebrities’ moral transgressions are common in both Western and Eastern cultures. Existing literature, however, has been primarily based on...     

Factors affecting attitudes and behavioural intention towards social networking advertising: a case of Facebook users in South Korea

This study examined factors (e.g., ad values and social networking advertising characteristics) influencing consumers' attitudes and behavioural intention towards three types of social networking advertising (SNA) on Facebook – home page ad, social impression ad, and organic impression ad. Findings demonstrate that peer influence had the most significant impacts on attitude and behavioural intention across all types of SNA. The significant interaction term of invasiveness and privacy concern indicates that both attitude and behavioural intention were diminished, particularly when perceived invasiveness and privacy concern were high simultaneously. In addition, results suggest that attitudes towards the ad played a mediating role between SNA characteristics and behavioural intention. Lastly, among the types of SNA, consumers preferred organic impression ads that featured friends' names on their newsfeed more than paid ads located on the sidebar of their Facebook pages.     

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...     

An Assessment of Consumer Protection and Consumer Empowerment in Costa Rica

The present exploratory study aims to describe and assess Costa Rica’s regime for protecting and empowering consumers. As the general framework, this study used research conducted in the USA, in Europe—specifically studies conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) partners—and studies sponsored by the European Union (EU) in Central America. This paper, however, is not intended to provide an exhaustive analysis or to answer all questions and issues related to consumer protection in Costa Rica; rather, it is to identify the main components of the consumer protection framework, its strategies, consumer redress mechanisms, remedies, and consumer protection challenges faced by the country. The last section outlines a conclusion and presents recommendations for improvement.     

2010年:消费信心高涨,消费行为理性

<正>年末岁首,依照惯例,各个机构、企业、学者都会热切地盘点全年的各种经济数据,对明年进行预测和部署,2009年年底尤其会这样,因为金融危机正处于触底反弹的关键时刻。其实从2008年底开始,绝大部分的人都认为中国企业应该开始准备过冬。但这个观点不一定值得附和,不是因为天性乐观,而是因为所有的判断,都需要回到需求,回到市场当中。     

Rectifying Consumer Protection Law and Establishing of a Consumer Court in Indonesia

Journal of Consumer Policy - In 2001, Indonesia established the Consumer Dispute Resolution Body (CDRB) based on the instruction of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) in 1999 to provide consumers...     

消费者增权理论与我国消费者权益保护法的完善

消费者增权理论是近年来西方社会科学领域关注的热点问题之一,在消费者增权理论中,信息供给型增权和制度供给型增权是两种主要模式。我国现阶段的消费模式和消费者权益保护实践表明,制度供给型消费者增权可以更好地保护消费者利益。所以,从消费者增权理论出发,完善消费者权益保护法律体系,是增进消费者利益保护和实现消费和谐的重要举措。     

Investing in consumer confidence through genetically modified labelling: an evaluation of compliance options and their marketing challenges for Australian firms

A significant number of studies have examined aspects of consumer responses towards genetically modified foods (GMFs). However, much of this effort has resulted in somewhat mixed findings which have not added real value in terms of providing viable directions for international and national organisations concerned with the labelling of GMFs. This is particularly true in an environment where labelling regulation is increasingly inconsistent and may therefore present real barriers to international trade and the marketing and sales of these food products.

The aim of this article therefore is to shed light on the extent to which the labelling impositions on genetically modified foods would impact on the overall viability of the GMF industry particularly from an international and firm perspective. To this end, a selection of literatures that cover labelling issues in Europe, USA, Canada and Australasia were distilled in order to better understand the pros and cons of labelling disclosures globally and from these present a platform for future marketing and implementation scenarios in Australia.

On the basis of this literature synthesis, we propose that the success of the GMF imperative is contingent on two levels of compliance. First, at the global level, there is need for greater international consensus regarding uniformity of standards of regulation that would allow for fair trade particularly through such bodies as the World Trade Organisation. By implication, Australia would require to adopt levels of compliance that are comparable to the stringent European Union requirements in order to be able to access those markets and any others. Second, we note that at the firm level, whilst production costs in developing appropriate labelling disclosures can be expected to rise on account of higher standards of compliance, these would be more than offset by the increase in consumer confidence as a consequence of the opportunity to make more informed choices. This in turn would generate positive Word of Mouth most likely resulting in increased uptake and adoption of GMFs generally thus allowing for disclosure costs to fall over time.     

美国消费信贷的经验分析与我国消费信贷市场的发展

本文通过对美国和我国消费信贷市场的比较分析,归纳我国消费信贷市场发展的经验得失,在此基础上,提出发展我国消费信贷市场的政策建议。