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Consumption Behaviour (consumption + behaviour)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting90%

Selected Abstracts

European Food Marketing: Understanding Consumer Wants , The Starting Point in Adding Value to Basic Food Products La commercialisation des aliments en Europe : comprendre des désirs des consommateurs , point de départ pour ajouter de la valeur aux produits alimentaires de base Lebensmittelhandel in Europa: Das Verständnis der Kundenwünsche ist Voraussetzung für zusätzliche Wertschöpfung bei Grundnahrungsmitteln

EUROCHOICES, Issue 3 2009
David Hughes
Summary European Food Marketing: Understanding Consumer Wants , The Starting Point in Adding Value to Basic Food Products European consumers have been in sombre mood as they battle to make ends meet in an economic recession. Yet, for many countries, the past 50 years or so has been a halcyon period of economic growth and, in real terms, declining food prices. Apart from lower food prices, attributes of convenience, health, pleasure and more esoteric social elements such as animal welfare-friendliness and environmental sustainability are increasingly important to consumers in their food choices. With higher household incomes has come an increasingly segmented food market, as businesses seek to differentiate their products from competitors to earn a premium above the basic commodity price. In an increasingly competitive European and global market, whether the firm is small or large, the first step in successful product differentiation requires an insightful understanding of the drivers of consumer purchase and consumption behaviour. These have fundamental commercial importance in the marketing strategy of any business. Yet, a surprising number of businesses in the food and beverage industry know very little about who buys and consumes their products. In the 21st century, the primacy of consumers and citizens will be substantially more ,front and centre' than in the previous 50 years of production-driven agricultural and food policy. Les consommateurs européens font grise mine depuis qu'ils peinent à joindre les deux bouts dans un contexte de récession économique. Pourtant, dans de nombreux pays, les cinquante dernières années ont formé une période en or de croissance économique et de baisse des prix alimentaires en termes réels. Outre des prix plus bas, les consommateurs accordent, dans leurs choix alimentaires, une importance de plus en plus grande à des attributs en termes de commodité, de santé, de plaisir et d'éléments sociaux plus ésotériques comme le bon traitement des animaux et la durabilité environnementale. La hausse des revenus des ménages a entraîné une segmentation accrue des marchés des produits alimentaires car les entreprises cherchent à différencier leurs produits de ceux de leurs concurrents pour obtenir une prime en sus du prix du produit classique. Dans un marché européen et mondial de plus en plus concurrentiel, que l'entreprise soit petite ou grande, la première étape d'une différentiation de produit réussie consiste à bien comprendre les motivations des consommateurs en termes d'achat et leur comportement en terme de consommation. Ces considérations ont une importance commerciale primordiale dans la stratégie de commercialisation de toute entreprise. Pourtant, un nombre surprenant de firmes de l'industrie des aliments et boissons savent très peu de chose sur les clients qui achètent et consomment leurs produits. Au vingt-et-unième siècle, la primauté des consommateurs et des citoyens sera nettement plus ,,frontale et centrale" qu'elle ne l'était dans les cinquante dernières années durant lesquelles la politique agricole et alimentaire était axée sur la production. Gedrückte Stimmung hat sich unter den europäischen Verbrauchern breit gemacht, da sie in der Rezession über die Runden kommen müssen. Dabei konnten viele Länder in den vergangenen etwa 50 Jahren auf eine glückliche Zeit wirtschaftlichen Wachstums und real rückläufiger Lebensmittelpreise blicken. Einmal abgesehen von den geringeren Lebensmittelpreisen, richtet der Verbraucher sein Hauptaugenmerk bei der Auswahl seiner Lebensmittel zunehmend auf Kriterien wie Verbraucherfreundlichkeit, Gesundheit, Genuss sowie esoterischere soziale Elemente wie Tierschutzfreundlichkeit und Umweltverträglichkeit. Höhere Haushaltseinkommen führten zu einem immer stärker segmentierten Lebensmittelmarkt, da die Unternehmen danach streben, ihre Produkte von denen der Konkurrenz abzuheben, um einen Aufschlag auf den Grundwarenpreis zu erzielen. Ob es sich nun um ein kleines oder großes Unternehmen handelt: Auf einem zunehmend wettbewerbsorientierten europäischen Markt und Weltmarkt und auf dem Weg hin zu einer erfolgreichen Produktdifferenzierung ist es zunächst einmal erforderlich, die Triebfedern für die Kaufentscheidung und das Konsumverhalten des Verbrauchers zu verstehen. Diese spielen eine wichtige wirtschaftliche Rolle in der Marketingstrategie eines jeden Unternehmens. Dennoch wissen erstaunlich viele Unternehmen aus der Lebensmittel- und Getränkeindustrie nur sehr wenig darüber, wer ihre Produkte kauft und konsumiert. Im 21. Jahrhundert werden die Wünsche der Verbraucher und Bürger wesentlich stärker Vorrang haben als dies in den vergangenen 50 Jahren produktionsorientierter Agrar- und Lebensmittelpolitik der Fall war. [source]

Beyond drinking: the role of wine in the life of the UK consumer

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 5 2007
Caroline Ritchie
Abstract Since the development of wine sales via supermarkets in the UK in the 1970s wine consumption has more than doubled so now the UK is the largest wine import market (by value) in the world. Wine is now consumed by approximately 61% of the UK adult population on a regular basis. For many social wine consumption has become part of their lifestyle. Given the international importance of the UK wine market, plus the increasing incorporation of wine into regular consumption behaviour, it is remarkable how few academic studies have been undertaken into the consumption behaviour of moderate, social UK wine consumers. This paper aims to start developing that knowledge, thus adding to our understanding of consumer behaviour in general. The results show that consumers use wine in very sophisticated ways via purchasing, gifting and consumption. The findings also show that social interaction with wine varies significantly, dependant upon occasion and environment. Behaviour also varies if the purchase, as gift and/or for consumption, is perceived as a private or public activity. This paper places UK wine consumer behaviour within a social context, and is able to show that all consumers display a range of behaviours in relation to wine which are situation and occasion dependant. [source]

Reconceptualizing risk perception: perceiving Majority World citizens at risk from ,Northern' consumption

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 3 2006
Sue L.T. McGregorArticle first published online: 3 APR 200
Abstract The premise of this paper is that the consumption behaviour of ,Northern' citizens places Majority World citizens at great risk. A theoretical evolution suggested in this paper is the extension of the notion of risky consumption to include the impact of consumption on the human security of others. Until people can envision that their consumption behaviour places others at risk of exposure to harm, they will not see the need to perceive, assess and manage the risk. The paper tenders a preliminary reconceptualization of risk perception, using the conventional consumer behaviour model constructs of personal, distribution channel and situational factors. From this new perspective, instead of judging whether the good or service is risky for a ,Northern' citizen to consume, risk perception scholars would examine people's perceptions of whether their consumption places fellow citizens at risk, the people labouring and producing the goods and services. [source]

Do consumption expenditures depend on the household's relative position in the income distribution?

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 1 2002
Mohamed Abdel-Ghany
Abstract Even though the permanent income and relative income hypotheses have been introduced in past research to explain consumer behaviour, no previous attempt was undertaken to integrate them in one model. In this article, the hypotheses were synthesized into a single model. The model was empirically tested using data from the 1996 Canadian Family Expenditure Survey. The results indicate that household consumption behaviour is generally explained by both hypotheses when integrated into one model, contrary to previously treating them as mutually exclusive hypotheses. [source]

Regional Inequalities in Consumption Patterns: A Multilevel Approach to the Case of Italy

INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2007
Filippa Bono
Summary The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the disparities in the Italian regions on the demand side. In more detail, an attempt will be made to find if the consumption behaviour of Italian households is different in the regions. With this in mind, Istat's 2000 Italian Family Budget data set was analysed. The data in question, which were collected through a two-stage sample over Italy's 20 regions, contains information regarding the expenses of approximately 23,000 households. In this analysis, both households and regions are considered as units: households are nested in the regions so that the basic data structure is hierarchical. In order to take this hierarchical structure into account, a multilevel model was used, making it possible for parameters to vary randomly from region to region. The model in question also made it possible to consider heterogeneity across different groups (regions), such as stochastic variation. First, regional inequalities were tested using a simple model in which households constituted the first level of analysis and were grouped according to their region (the second level). As a second step, and in order to investigate the interaction between geographical context and income distribution, another model was used. This was cross-classified by income and regions. The most relevant results showed that there is wide fragmentation of consumption behaviour and, at the same time, various differentiated types of behaviour in the regions under analysis. These territorial differentials become clear from income class and items of consumption. Resumé L'objet du travail est l'analyse des différences, entre les régions italiennes, des comportements des consommateurs. Le traitement statistique des données individuelles est originale car il est conduit par un modèle ,multilevel'. Le modèle multilevel tient compte de la structure hiérarchique de données et permet au paramètres estimée de varier par hasard. En outre, ce modèle permet que l'hétérogénéité entre le différent groupes de familles (les unités statistiques) peut varier par hasard entre le régions. Pour l'analyse des différences régionales modèle ,multilevel nous avons estimée un premier modèle avec les familles au premier dégrée hiérarchique et les régions au second dégrée. Car le facteur géographique interagit avec la distribution du revenue dans chaque région nous avons estimée un autre modèle cross-classifiée par lequel le familles sont groupées par le revenue. [source]

The consumption and disposition behaviour of voluntary simplifiers

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 1 2010
Paul W. Ballantine
Voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle choice that has received increasing media attention over time. A defining characteristic of voluntary simplicity is reduced material consumption and the removal of clutter from one's life, thus suggesting the topic of disposition may inform our understanding of voluntary simplifier lifestyle behaviour. This paper explores the disposition activities of voluntary simplifiers in the context of their overall consumption behaviour using a series of in-depth interviews with 12 current voluntary simplifiers. The findings show that disposition plays an important role in voluntary simplifier behaviour, especially during the initial stages of adopting the lifestyle. The consideration of future disposition activities was also found to influence the day-to-day consumption behaviour of participants. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Chance Discovery by Stimulated Groups of People.

JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2002
Application to Understanding Consumption of Rare Food
Chance discovery is to become aware of and to explain the significance of a chance, that is, a piece of information about events or situations that is significant for decision making. Sometimes a chance is rare and its significance is unnoticed. This paper proposes a method to merge three keys for chance discovery: (1) communication; (2) imagination and (3) data mining. Applied to the case of meal service, a visualised data mining method KeyGraph is used for discovering unnoticed demands underlying family consumption behaviour. The visualised relations between usual and unusual consumption patterns stimulate the awareness of and the communication among housewives talking in a room. This leads to the discovery of latent family consumption demands and to the proposal of serving meals that have unnoticed significant merits for their families. [source]

Chinese animal product consumption in the 1990s

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2004
Hengyun Ma
Chinese animal product consumption behaviour was analysed for both urban and rural households using a complete regional consumption dataset that was augmented to include away-from-home consumption. Seven animal product expenditure share equations were estimated with an extended Almost Ideal Demand System model. The results suggest that Chinese consumers will continue to increase their consumption of animal products, but that consumption patterns have changed in the 1990s. A large percentage of household animal product expenditure is still on pork. However, the shares for aquatic and poultry products consumption will increase substantially. As a consequence, the pork expenditure share will be gradually reduced as incomes grow and diet preferences change in both urban and rural households. There are significant differences in animal product consumption preferences across regions of China. As a result, studies that omit regional dummy variables in their demand systems can produce different expenditure and price parameters. The present paper also found that many of the estimates of elasticities and marginal expenditure shares would be rather different if the data ignored consumption away from home. [source]

The self-presentation and self-development of serious wildlife tourists

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010
Susanna Curtin
Abstract The notion of self-concept and choice of tourism products has yet to be applied to wildlife tourism. The question of how consumers perceive themselves is considered fundamental to understanding purchase and consumption behaviours. This ethnographic study is based upon ,serious' wildlife tourism participants, for whom studying fauna and flora is the primary motivation for travel. The findings demonstrate how the ,culture' of ,serious' wildlife tourism is made up of individuals who differentiate themselves from other tourists in terms of dress, behaviour, development of skills, equipment and intellectual capital, illustrated by their desire to scope, identify and photograph wildlife. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]