The Role of Consumer Characteristics and Attitudes in Purchase Behavior of Domestic versus Foreign Made Products

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of factors underlying consumer choice of domestic vs. foreign products on a sample of consumers in a less traditional post-socialist economy of Slovenia. Empirical results confirmed the postulated relationships among the protectionism dimension of ethnocentric attitudes, familiarity with global brands and consumer domestic purchase decisions for the product categories examined in this study. However, findings did not lend support for theoretical propositions related to demographic variables. Implications for domestic and global brand managers are outlined in the conclusions.     

Foreign Product Purchase Behavior in Transition Economies: An Empirical Analysis of Product Information Sources Among Georgian Consumers

SUMMARY

This article analyzes the product information sources that consumers in transition economies, specifically in Georgia, utilize when they consider purchasing foreign products. We surveyed 313 consumers in Georgia regarding 9 sources of product information (experiential knowledge, word of mouth, in-store promotions, television, packaging information, radio, newspapers and magazines, salespeople, and billboards). The findings indicated that personal experience and word of mouth are the 2 most frequently used and highly valued sources of information while salespeople and radio are the 2 least frequently used and least influential sources of information. Education, age, and ethnocentrism exhibited significant impact on the experience source.     

Do early adopters upgrade early? Role of post-adoption behavior in the purchase of next-generation products

In examining the adoption of innovations, marketing researchers have generally assumed that the early adopters of one product are more likely to be early in adopting the next generation of products. However, there seems to be a missing link between buyers' first adoptions and their next-generation purchases, or upgrades. This paper tries to fill the gap by incorporating users' post-adoption behavior into the model of buyers' product upgrade behavior on the successive versions of innovations. Survey data on cell phone purchases in Korea confirm the idea that the post-adoption behavior, particularly the use of innovative features, plays a critical role in developing users' intention to upgrade.     

Organic Food at the Point of Purchase: Understanding Inconsistency in Consumer Choice Patterns

The organic food category, while still small in terms of world food production, has continued to grow in many markets in the developed world. This article focuses on understanding the barriers and facilitators to purchasing organic food at the final hurdle: the point of purchase (POP). A qualitative study has identified seven factors that influence buyer behavior at the POP, and these are consumer intention to purchase organic food when entering the retail outlet; habit; availability; false assumptions; visibility and access of organic food; visual and olfactory cues; and price. These can often be the final hurdle to consumers choosing (or not) organic food at the POP.     

The role of ethical problems related to a brand in the purchasing decision process: An analysis of the moderating effect of complexity of purchase and mediation of perceived social risk

The objective of this article is to identify the effect of the perception of a brand's ethical problems on consumer behavior. The research contemplates two experimental studies, in which different brands were used in different product categories. Based on the results of the experiments, we verified the moderating effect of the perceived purchase complexity and the mediating effect of perceived social risk in the relationship between the perception of ethical problems related to a brand and the declared purchase intention, both by university students and by real consumers. Through the analysis of means differences and conditional models analyzed with PROCESS (Hayes, 2012), we identified that the perception of ethical problems related to a brand affects consumer confidence and, in some cases, the perception of product quality. In addition, we find that for products with low purchasing complexity, the effect of ethical problems is mitigated both in relation to the purchase intention and in the formation of the perception of social risk linked to consumption.     

Twenty-Five Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: An Empirical Revisit of West German Consumers' Attitudes Toward Products and Brands from Former East Germany

More than 25 years after the German reunification, data show that products/brands from the eastern regions of Germany (“Neue Länder”) still do not have significant shares in the country's western part (“Alte Länder”). To analyze potential reasons for this phenomenon, our current study replicates a previous study that investigated selected attitudes of Alte Länder consumers toward products/brands from the Neue Länder. It is shown that factors such as consumer ethnocentrism, product judgment, willingness to buy, and economic animosity continue to influence consumer behavior and as such our study offers potential explanation for the failure of Neue Länder products/brands in the western regions of Germany.     

品牌跨界产品联合距离对联合产品评价及购买意愿的影响

近年来品牌跨界联合的案例不断推陈出新,在品牌跨界中的联合产品差异较大,这与过去品牌联合追求匹配性存在巨大反差。企业如何提高品牌跨界联合效果成为学术界与实践界的关注热点。文章聚焦品牌跨界情境,探究产品联合距离与概念组合解释策略对联合产品评价及购买意愿的影响机制。实验研究表明,与近距离的产品联合相比,远距离的产品联合会引起更低的联合产品评价和更低的消费者购买意愿;感知风险和感知创新在产品联合距离与消费者对联合产品评价和购买意愿影响中起到中介作用;关系链接和属性映射的解释策略在产品联合距离对联合产品评价与购买意愿的影响关系以及产品联合距离对感知风险与感知创新的影响关系中起到调节作用。     

The use of event related potentials brain methods in the study of Conscious and unconscious consumer decision making processes

The question of whether consumer purchasing decisions are conscious choices or unconscious has long been studied in marketing. The ability to measure mental changes with high temporal resolution makes the EEG-based event-related potentials (ERP) method very useful in studying the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness. Although experiences with brands significantly affect the awareness or unconsciousness of decisions to purchase, ERP studies have ignored experiences of consumers in relation to brand purchases. For this purpose, EEG recordings of participants were taken in the order they saw brand names: experienced brands, review-based brands, and unknown brands. Participants chose one of the three options for the brands they saw on the screen: buying, not buying, and no idea. 35 people participated in the study. The results indicate that early ERPs, which are unconscious mental reactions, related to purchase decisions for previously unknown brands. Late ERPs associated with conscious mental reactions are related to purchasing review-based brands or experienced brands. We conclude that purchasing decisions about unknown brands occur as a result of automatic, unconscious mental processes, whereas purchasing decisions about previously experienced brands and based on consumer reviews result from conscious mental processes. Our study is the first that demonstrates the relationship between ERP's and purchasing decisions, with an experimental design focused on consumer experience and consciousness.     

Exploring purchase intention of green skincare products using the theory of planned behavior: Testing the moderating effects of country of origin and price sensitivity

Increased community awareness on various environmental problems has changed consumers’ behaviors and induced purchasing decisions on green products. Applying the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study aims to explain the effects (i.e., attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) on purchase intention of green skincare products; it also aims to determine if country of origin (COO) and price sensitivity moderate the links between purchase intention and its antecedences. Data collected from 300 respondents in Taiwan are tested against the research model by using structural equation modelling. The results indicate that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control have a significant impact on purchase intention of green skincare products, and that country of origin and price sensitivity can enhance the positive effects on the links between purchase intention and its antecedences. The findings of this study present important theoretical and practical implications for consumer green product purchase behaviors.