Non-Conscious Influences on Consumer Choice

While consumer choice research has dedicated considerable research attention to aspects of choice that are deliberative and conscious, only limited attention has been paid to aspects of choice that occur outside of conscious awareness. We review relevant research that suggests that consumer choice is a mix of conscious and nonconscious influences, and argue that the degree to which nonconscious influences affect choice is much greater than many choice researchers believe. Across a series of research domains, these influences are found to include stimulus that are not consciously perceived by the consumer, nonconscious downstream effects of a consciously perceived stimuli or thought process, and decision processes that occur entirely outside of awareness.     

Correction Processes in Consumer Choice

Consumers sometimes recognize that irrelevant contextual factors may influence their judgments and decisions. When such factors are detected, consumers might engage in correction processes to counteract unwanted influences in their judgments and decisions. An experiment demonstrated that correction processes can reduce the magnitude of the compromise effect and the attraction effect.     

In-Kind Food Assistance and Consumer Food Choice

In-kind food assistance was the mainstay of federal food programs until the food stamp program expanded. Analysis of aggregate data suggests that large donations of cheese and butter since 1982, through the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program, replaced recipients’ normal purchases of the donated products, reduced consumption of close substitutes, and increased consumption of certain other protein foods. Programs of this type appear to have limited ability to enhance total demand for products in surplus.     

Brand Equity, Consumer Learning and Choice

The aim of this paper is to explore the links between brand equity, consumer learning and consumer choice processes in general and considering two recent trends in the market place: store brands and the Internet. We first review the advances that have occurred in brand equity research in marketing in the past decade, with particular emphasis on integrating the separate streams of research emanating from cognitive psychology and information economics. Brand equity has generally been defined as the incremental utility with which a brand endows a product, compared to its non-branded counterpart. We amplify this definition: we propose that brand equity be the incremental effect of the brand on all aspects of the consumer's evaluation and choice process. We propose an agenda of research based on this amplified definition.     

Influence of Soldout Products on Consumer Choice

Consumers often face situations in which information about soldout products is still present in the decision context. This paper demonstrates that the presence of soldout products in the decision environment can prompt consumers to purchase available options and decrease choice deferral. This effect can be explained by two underlying decision processes. First, soldout products may create a sense of urgency for consumers to expedite their purchases, which the authors call an immediacy effect. Second, soldout products may enhance the perceived attractiveness of products similar to the soldout products, which the authors refer to as an informational cascades effect.     

Industry Characteristics and Consumer Dissatisfaction

Drawing upon Hirschman's (1970) theory, a conceptual framework is developed that attempts to explain how industry characteristics are likely to influence consumers' responses to dissatisfaction. Findings from consumer complaining behavior literature are also incorporated. Several hypotheses are derived and tested utilizing data from three different service categories. Despite the parsimony of Hirschman's theory, the results are encouraging. Also, the stability and validity of the results are examined under several different contingencies. Implications for researchers, practitioners, and public policy officials are discussed and directions for research outlined.     

Product Strategy and Antitrust: A Consumer Choice Perspective

Traditionally antitrust law is strongly tied to price theory economics so that prices, costs, profits, and profit sacrifice are typically examined in antitrust cases. This paper proposes broadening traditional antitrust analysis to also explicitly examine the likely effect of allegedly anticompetitive conduct on product options and consumer choice. In order to accomplish this task, this paper proposes that various aspects of marketing strategy should be considered when examining product strategies that are accused of being anticompetitive. This paper further suggests that the current list of inconsistently and poorly defined product strategies used by the courts be augmented by three more straight forward but overlapping categories based on impact on consumer choice: Lock‐Outs, Lock‐Ins, and Hold‐Ups.     

The Ethical Consumer. Moral Norms and Packaging Choice

This study investigates whether the claim that environmental attitudes are based on moral reasoning is valid with regard to consumer buying attitudes, as it has been shown to be in other domains of consumer behaviour. It is proposed that two conditions make moral reasoning in the buying situation more likely: environmental concern and the absence of other highly involving characteristics. The paper presents a study of a case with these two characteristics: Danish consumers' choice of environment-friendly packaging. With regard to this case, the evidence supports the claim. A majority of Danish consumers have developed personal norms about choosing environment-friendly packaging and the personal norm is a significant predictor of their (self-reported) propensity to choose environment-friendly packaging in the supermarket (whereas perceived costs have a minor influence on the choice). It is recommended that attempts to promote this and similar behaviour focus on strengthening consumers' intrinsic motivation and on facilitating its transformation into behaviour.     

Effects on Nutrition Label Regulation on Consumer Choice

The U.S. government initiated food labeling reform in 1989, which culminated with the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990, emphasizing the provision of improved nutrition information on most food products. The goal of such labeling reform has been to provide consistent, readable, understandable and usable food labels that enable consumers to make more healthful food choices. This paper examines the theoretical impact of the new regulations on consumer food choice behavior. The paper first discusses the use and impact of food labels by/on consumers, and uses a choice model to desribe the effects of these new labels on consumer food choice decisions. In particular, the research focuses on two important food attributes, and the presence of information of these attributes through the new nutrition labels, which may influence consumer purchase behavior.     

消费者渠道选择的决策过程演变研究

消费者面临着多样化的渠道选择,企业要有效的管理销售渠道,必须了解消费者渠道选择的决策过程,然而,这是一项具有挑战性的任务,因为消费者的渠道选择随时都可能变化。文章首先基于学习理论解释了消费者渠道选择的决策过程是演变的,然后分析了消费者渠道选择决策过程演变的三个影响因素即:渠道偏好、个人习惯和营销策略,在此基础上构建了消费者渠道选择的决策过程演变理论模型,并进行修正,最后提出了在管理上的三点启示。     

Bank Credit Cards: Consumer Irrationality versus Market Forces

Why are bank card interest rates sticky? One explanation is bank card consumer irrationality, a potentially significant market failure requiring government intervention. Alternate explanations focus on efficient market forces. The 1989 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data are not consistent with the consumer irrationality hypothesis. The data are consistent with a market-based model of demand for balances and suggest that consumers may rationally eschew search because small outstanding balances imply low returns to search.     

跨国银行国际营销渠道的比较与选择

代理行和海外分行是银行国际分销渠道的两种主要模式。从合约理论来看,代理行是一种市场合约,海外分行是一种企业合约。本文运用合约理论分析和比较了这两种分销渠道的交易特征,并利用博弈论模型探讨了这两种分销渠道的运用环境和适用条件。     

网购食品消费者选择行为的影响因素

利用1 790份网络调查问卷数据,采用相关分析、交叉分析等统计方法,研究网购食品消费者选择行为,分析网购食品市场渗透率不高、用户黏性不足的主要原因,结果表明,消费者个性特征差异会导致对网购食品的不同态度,进而影响消费者对网购食品的选择行为;良好的网购环境、物美价廉的食品、优质的网购服务,是促使消费者选择网购食品的主要因素,对网购食品安全的担忧、习惯于传统购物方式、网购维权难度大,是抑制消费者选择网购食品的主要因素,尤其是网购食品"难维权、维权难"可能会放大消费者对网购食品产生的消极态度。为此,应加强网购食品多主体协同监管,消除消费者怀疑心理和不放心态度;建立以消费者需求为中心的网购食品质量安全供应链管理体系,推动线上市场和线下实体店紧密结合、融合发展;完善网购食品维权制度,畅通维权渠道。     

The Effect of Attribute Variation on Consumer Choice Consistency

We study the effect of shifts in attribute level differences on consumer choice consistency. Choice consistency is measured as the variance of the random error component in the consumer utility function: the smaller this variance, the higher choice consistency. We hypothesize that due to increased choice difficulty, choice consistency decreases if attribute level differences increase while average utility level differences between alternatives remain the same. In our empirical illustration we focus on the impact of price level shifts on choice consistency in conjoint choice experiments. Our results show that choice consistency decreases as price level differences increase and absolute price levels increase.     

Consumer Choice Behavior and Electronic Shopping Systems – A Theoretical Note

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of alternative approaches in modeling consumer choice behavior with respect to making purchases either in the traditional manner or using an electronic shopping system. We concentrate on the effects of two specific features: the amount of time spent on shopping and the shopping experience. We consider a simple two-good situation in which one good is a composite good that consists of all goods purchased electronically, and the other is the composite of all goods purchased in a traditional manner. The models suggest that both time saved and an increase in shopping experience related to Web-based shopping will lead to increased purchasing at a Web shop.     

Representing Heterogeneity in Consumer Response Models 1996 Choice Conference Participants

We define sources of heterogeneity in consumer utility functions relatedto individual differences in response tendencies, drivers of utility, formof the consumer utility function, perceptions of attributes, statedependencies, and stochasticity. A variety of alternative modelingapproaches are reviewed that accommodate subsets of these various sourcesincluding clusterwise regression, latent structure models, compounddistributions, random coefficients models, etc. We conclude by defining anumber of promising research areas in this field.     

Marketing Strategy, Product Safety, and Ethical Factors in Consumer Choice

Firms that wish to be morally responsible in providing products that meet a high standard of safety may face problems competing against firms that make unsafe products and sell these products at cheap prices; these problems may be compounded when consumers do not accurately process information about safety and risk. This paper presents a conceptual argument that the tort system may serve to promulgate information which makes it feasible for firms to market safe products even in the face of these competitive obstacles.To corroborate the conceptual argument, the paper presents the results of an experimental study about the impact of negligence liability information on consumer product safety evaluation. The results show that provision of negligence information heightens consumer concern for safety and firms' ethical behavior, and increases the proportion of consumer choices in favors of the brands sold by manufacturers with a favorable track record for quality. More importantly, they indicate that provision of negligence information reduces the likelihood that brands which conform to inferior safety standards will be chosen by consumers who care about safety standards.     

Understanding Firm, Physician and Consumer Choice Behavior in the Pharmaceutical Industry

This paper argues that the pharmaceutical industry represents an exciting opportunity to carry out academic research. The nature of the industry allows researchers to answer new questions, develop new methodologies for answering these questions as well as to apply existing methodology to new data. The paper opens with some industry background, then provides a brief overview of some important research areas and discusses the open questions in each area. Issues of data type and availability are also discussed. This paper is based on a session (with the same title and participants) that was part of the Sixth Invitational Choice Symposium hosted by the University of Colorado and held at Estes Park, Colorado during June 4–8, 2004.