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Consumer Heterogeneity (consumer + heterogeneity)
Selected AbstractsExperience, change and vulnerability: consumer education for older people revisitedINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 3 2002Phil Lyon Abstract Everyday consumer transactions have the same potential for unexpected consequence whatever the age of the consumers involved. Young and old alike can find that products and services fail to live up to performance claims and that they are left with problems not easily resolved, or costs that are difficult to recover. While not overlooking consumer heterogeneity , especially on the basis of age , older consumers are arguably distinguishable in terms of the social and financial context in which they make decisions and attempt to redress problems. In 1988, attention was drawn to the need for consumer education to look beyond generic objectives to the specific situation of older people and their transactions. More than a decade later, in an allegedly consumer-oriented society, the issue is revisited here to assess the argument's current relevance. Despite the increased availability of information for decisions and consumer protection, difficulties persist in the way information is presented or accessed. Chameleon-like, old problems become manifest in new unfamiliar ways and invalidate experience. Consumer education today is as important as it was in 1988. Arguably, technological change means that the need for a better understanding of dangers, rights and redress procedures is greater than ever and the needs of older people in increasingly complex private and public sector transaction environments are all the more pressing. However, a fundamental revision of the way we approach the design of products, services and environments is needed to improve prospects for older consumers. [source] Consumer sophistication and the role of emotion on satisfaction judgments within credence servicesJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 6 2007Tony Garry Evidence which demonstrates a link between the affective dimension and satisfaction in a tangible product based context is well documented. However, when placed in a credence service context the role of Affect becomes more complex. Previous research in this field has assumed consumer homogeneity when there is increasing evidence of consumer heterogeneity. This research attempts to address this by examining affective reactions to service encounters between two groups of respondents, one with the ability to make performance assessments about the service and one without. Findings suggest consumers of differing sophistication will vary in the way they form expectation and performance assessments about the technical, functional and affective components of credence services and that consumer sophistication may have a moderating influence on affective reactions evoked. This in turn has implications for the design and delivery of service offerings within such contexts. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Forecasting new product trial in a controlled test market environmentJOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 5 2003Peter S. Fader Abstract A number of researchers have developed models that use test market data to generate forecasts of a new product's performance. However, most of these models have ignored the effects of marketing covariates. In this paper we examine what impact these covariates have on a model's forecasting performance and explore whether their presence enables us to reduce the length of the model calibration period (i.e. shorten the duration of the test market). We develop from first principles a set of models that enable us to systematically explore the impact of various model ,components' on forecasting performance. Furthermore, we also explore the impact of the length of the test market on forecasting performance. We find that it is critically important to capture consumer heterogeneity, and that the inclusion of covariate effects can improve forecast accuracy, especially for models calibrated on fewer than 20 weeks of data.,Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A NOTE ON MARKET COVERAGE IN VERTICAL DIFFERENTIATION MODELS WITH FIXED COSTSBULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 1 2008Pei-Cheng Liao L11; L13 ABSTRACT With fixed costs of quality improvement, we find that a covered market outcome with an interior solution in the price stage is not a Nash equilibrium. When the degree of consumer heterogeneity is high (low) enough, an uncovered market outcome (a covered market outcome with a corner solution in the price stage) is the only Nash equilibrium. When the degree of consumer heterogeneity is moderate, both of the two market outcomes are Nash equilibria, but an uncovered market outcome yields higher social welfare than a covered market outcome with a corner solution in the price stage. [source] How do U.S. and Canadian consumers value credence attributes associated with beef labels after the North American BSE crisis of 2003?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 4 2010Bodo E. Steiner Abstract A consumer survey conducted in 2006 (n = 419), and therefore after the first confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases in North America in 2003, employs attribute-based choice experiments for a cross-country comparison of consumers' valuation of credence attributes associated with beef steak labels; specifically a guarantee that beef was tested for BSE, a guarantee that the steaks were produced without genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and a guarantee that beef steaks were produced without growth hormones and antibiotics. Considering consumers' socio-economic characteristics, the results suggest that consumers in Montana (U.S.) and Alberta (Canada) are significantly heterogeneous in their valuation of the above attributes, although consumers' relative valuation of these process attributes does not appear to have changed since the 2003 BSE crisis in each region. Alberta consumers place a significant valuation on beef tested for BSE, which is striking because Canada's current legal environment does not permit testing and labelling of such beef by private industry participants. Montana consumers' valuation was found highest for a guarantee that the steaks were produced without GMO. Effective supply-chain responses to consumers' valuation of credence attributes, for example, in the form of labelling, should therefore take consumers' heterogeneity into account. [source] | ||||||||||