Does price reflect emotional,structural or performance quality?

Three denim jeans products from the same manufacturer with differentiated pricing and labels (antiqued, sandblasted, and stonewashed) were used to determine the relationship between price and quality. Both qualitative and quantitative procedures were used to analyse the garments. All three jeans were made of twill weave with 3 × 1 repeat. Both structural and performance characteristics were compared using standardized tests. Analysis of variance was used to compare the selected structural and performance characteristics among the three jeans products. Tukey’s HSD tests were used for post hoc multiple comparisons for three jeans. The findings revealed that despite the fact that all three jeans products were from the same store, and that the fabrics used the same weave, degree and direction of twist, the jeans differed significantly for several structural and performance characteristics. Several possibilities for future research were explored.     

Foods produced using biotechnology: how does the law protect consumers?

This paper addresses the following subjects: biotechnology and consumers, concern about risks, consumer acceptance, labelling of foods produced using biotechnology, the legal approach to consumer protection, and consumer protection policies relating to biotechnology products in the European Union, the United States, Turkey and global institutions such as the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is likely that biotechnology will gain ground much more rapidly in the twenty‐first century than in the past. Despite rapid, detailed and precise advances in gene technology, its applications have not been the received with a great deal of consumer enthusiasm. Consumers have approached genetically modified foods with considerable apprehension and opposition. Consumer concerns about bioengineered food products focus on the questions of human health, environmental and social risks and benefits. The most important stages in the process of marketing new foods produced using biotechnology are to demonstrate user need and consumer acceptance. Generally, the technical complexity of biotechnology makes it difficult for consumers to understand details of the product and the specific attributes of biotechnology applications. Scientific uncertainty, the nature of consumer concerns and general reluctance to accept biotechnology products, increase the importance of consumer protection. Legal protection is a very important factor in the solution of new social problems related to technological advances. More specifically, consumer and environmental law support consumer protection related to foods produced with biotechnology. The basic principles of consumer law can be re‐formulated as consumer rights. Environmental law is a new phenomenon, but precautionary principles and public participation in decision‐making for environmental law are relevant to consumer protection relating to bioengineered food products.     

Comparative Advantage in Demand: Experimental Evidence of Preferences for Genetically Modified Food in the United States and European Union

The United States (US) exports more than US$6 billion in agricultural commodities to the European Union(EU) each year, but one issue carries the potential to diminish this trade: use of biotechnology in food production. The EU has adopted more stringent policies towards biotechnology than the US. Understanding differences in European and American policies towards genetically modified (GM) foods requires a greater understanding of consumers’ attitudes and preferences. This paper reports results from the first large‐scale, cross‐Atlantic study to analyse consumer demand for genetically modified food in a non‐hypothetical market environment. We strongly reject the frequent if convenient assumption in trade theory that consumer preferences are identical across countries: the median level of compensation demanded by English and French consumers to consume a GM food is found to be more than twice that in any of the US locations. Results have important implications for trade theory, which typically focuses on differences in specialization, comparative advantage and factor endowments across countries, and for on‐going trade disputes at the World Trade Organization.     

试论企业的终端营销攻略

本文分析了销售终端在企业经营战略中的重大意义，并主要以海尔为例对当今市场经济条件下企业销售终端的建立，提出了若干思路和建议。     

增值销售——企业发展的新起点

本文通过对技术、管理方面日新月异发展现状的分析,指出目前企业正面临着销售困难这一实际问题,并提出了相应的解决方案,即将企业内外部业务合理化改造与实现客户满意有机地结合,才能实现企业增值销售。     

消费者与组织购买行为的比较研究

消费者购买行为是消费者为满足个人或家庭生活需要而发生的购买商品的决策或行动，组织购买行为是组织与组织之间的营销活动。组织购买与消费者购买有着较大的差异，因规模远比后者大而对市场经济的作用巨大，在市场营销理论中也占看重要的地位。对消费者与组织购买行为进行比较研究，对组织购买决策模型加以对比分析，有助于更好地理解组织购买活动与购买决策过程。     

整合营销传播学的行销主张与马克思主义经济理论观点的相关联系

整合营销传播学是一门源于美国的新兴的营销学传播理论。它所主张的“一切以消费者为中心”展开营销传播的思想理念,改变了传统营销理论中“以生产和销售为中心”的企业营销策略,顺应了知识经济时代的市场发展趋势,并与马克思主义经济理论观点具有某些相关性联系。本文就此提出探讨,同时结合我国市场经济转轨中企业经营观念的相关问题进行了思考。     

Materialism, status signaling, and product satisfaction

The consumer satisfaction literature has not, for the mos part, integrated individual values into the product evaluation process. Yet a comprehensive understanding of consumer satisfaction can best be attained by including both consumer and product factors. To demonstrate the usefulness of including individual values, this research focuses on one consumer value, namely, materialism. The authors empirically explore how this individual value is linked to consumers’ evaluations of products they have purchased. Using surveys, the authors collected data from a sample of college students (n=211) and a sample of adults (n=270). Across these two studies, using divergent samples and products, they find consistent evidence that materialism is negatively related to product satisfaction in product categories with high potential for status signaling, but unrelated to product satisfaction in product categories with lower potential for status signaling. The consumption goals that produce these product evaluations are empirically addressed Jeff Wang (jianfeng76@yahoo.com; PhD, City University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong. This work was conducted when he was a doctoral student of marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. His research interests include social networks and consumer behavior, consumer satisfaction and well-being, materialism and consumption meanings, and consumer interests and public policy issues. His dissertation studies credit card debt as a socially embedded phenomenon and investigates how consumers leverage their interpersonal ties as they accumulate and repay their debt. Melanie Wallendorf (mwallendorf@eller.arizona.edu) is Soldwedel Professor of Marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. She holds an MS in sociology and a PhD in marketing from the University of Pittsburgh. Her articles on the sociocultural aspects of consumption have been published in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Advertising and Society Review, Addiction, Journal of Macromarketing, andAmerican Behavioral Scientist, among others. Her coauthored article on “The Sacred and Profane in Consumer Behavior” won theJournal of Consumer Research Best Article Award in 1992. Her research has been featured in theWall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, American Demographics, andFortune, and has been funded by the Marketing Science Institute, the Arizona Disease Control Research Commission, and the Office of Earth Science at NASA.     

消费税制的国际比较及其对我国的启示

消费税制改革是我国新一轮税制改革的任务之一。改革和完善我国消费税制，应借鉴国外一些成功经验，丰富和完善我国消费税的立法原则，适当扩大征税范围，调整税收负担，改革计税依据和征税方法。     

改革与完善我国现行消费信贷制度的几点思考

在我国，消费信贷发展缓慢，其原因是：消费者承贷能力较弱；消费信贷操作不够规范；缺乏消费信贷的防范机制和完善的社会保障制度。若扩大消费信贷就必须营造有利于消费信贷发展的法制环境，并借鉴西方发达国家经验。