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on Marketing |
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Issue of 2016‒12‒11
eleven papers chosen by João Carlos Correia Leitão Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Weinrich, Ramona; Kühl, Sarah; Franz, Anabell; Spiller, Achim |
| Abstract: | Many people view animal welfare standards in the agricultural industry as critical and some consumers would prefer to buy high welfare meat. In order to successfully introduce high welfare meat products onto the market, some important marketing decisions must be made. Due to limited shelf space, niche products like high welfare meat cannot be placed both at the self-service counter and at the service counter. In order to analyze where to place it best an online survey of 642 German consumers was conducted. By means of factor and cluster analyses, consumers’ animal welfare attitudes and their preference for a point of purchase were combined. The different target groups were combined using cross tabulation analysis. The results show that consumers in the target group show a more positive attitude to the service counter. |
| Keywords: | Service counter, self-service counter, retail, animal welfare, consumer research, Agribusiness, |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa144:206232&r=mkt |
| By: | Klink, Jeanette; Nina, Langen |
| Abstract: | Recurring reports on animal husbandry conditions as well as the maltreatment of animals during transport to slaughterhouses in the last years increased public concerns about animal welfare conditions showing the need to act for all stakeholders throughout the meat supply chain (e.g. Bánáti, 2011). As a consequence animal wel-fare has become one of the priorities on the agenda of politicians (see the coalition agreement in 2013; CDU et al., 2013), consumer policy and protection agencies and is intensively discussed in the private sector as well as in academia. In Germany, in particular the ‘Initiative Tierwohl’ continuously gains in importance and in 2013 for the first time an EU animal welfare label was established. However, the increasing stated interest in animal welfare is not yet reflected by sales figures in the meat mar-ket. In literature different reasons addressing multiple levels of the topic are discussed for this discrepancy (e.g. Hartmann et al., 2014). One factor is the lack of a universally accepted definition and understanding of animal welfare due to its multidimensional character (Lagerkvist and Hess, 2014). Another reason is the potential so-cial desirability bias which occurs to different extent depending on the survey method used to elicit the prefer-ences of the actors. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to get deeper insights into first, consumers’ understanding of animal welfare by identifying the relevant aspects of animal welfare in consumers’ decision making process while pur-chasing meat. Second, we use two methods to assess the relevance of animal welfare issues for consumers when thinking about the purchase of meat to quantify the extent the different survey methods construct sur-vey results rather than elicit consumer preferences. For this purpose an online survey with N = 926 participants was conducted in July 2012. The investigated meat products were chicken and pork cutlet. Consumers’ preferences for different product attributes were meas-ured via a questionnaire as well as by an individualized Information Display Matrix (IDM). As to the first research question, the results indicate that with respect to animal welfare aspects the one of especially high relevance to consumers is animal husbandry conditions while e.g. slaughtering or feeding is of lower importance. The results also indicate that animal husbandry conditions are much more relevant for consumers when thinking about the purchase of chicken cutlet compared to pork cutlet. With regard to the second question survey results show that respondents’ preferences obtained via questionnaire and IDM deviate to a considerable extent regarding the attribute price. While participants stated in the questionnaire that price is of minor importance, the analysis based on the IDM displays clearly that price plays a paramount role in consum-ers’ meat information search process. Thus, we see evidence that the two survey methods are prone to suffer to a different degree from the social desirability bias. The results can help policy makers, manufacturers and retailers as well as NGOs in promoting and selling meat produced according to higher animal welfare standards. Successful promotion of such products is only possible if there is a good understanding of the animal welfare characteristics important to consumers. |
| Keywords: | Animal welfare, Information Display Matrix, meat supply chain, chicken and pork cutlet, Agribusiness, |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa144:206246&r=mkt |
| By: | Terlau, Wiltrud; Hirsch, Darya |
| Abstract: | Sustainable development needs sustainable production and sustainable consumption. During the last decades the encouragement of sustainable production has been the focus of research and policy makers under the implicit assumption that the observable increasing ‘green’ values of consumers would also entail a growing sustainable consumption. However, it has been found that the actual purchasing behaviour often deviates from ‘green’ attitudes. This phenomenon is called the attitude-behaviour gap. It is influenced by individual, social and situational factors. The main purchasing barriers for sustainable (organic) food are price, lack of immediate availability, sensory criteria, lack or overload of information as well as the low-involvement feature of food products in conjunction with well-established consumption routines, lack of transparency and trust towards labels and certifications. The last three barriers are mainly of a psychological nature. Especially the low-involvement feature of food products due to daily purchase routines and relatively low prices tends to result in fast, automatic and subconscious decisions based on a so-called human mental system 1, derived from Daniel Kahneman’s2 model in behavioural psychology. In contrast, the human mental system 2 is especially important for the transformations of individual behaviour towards a more sustainable consumption. Decisions based on the human mental system 2 are slow, logical, rational, conscious and arduous. This so-called dual action model also influences the reliability of responses in consumer surveys. It seems that the consumer behaviour is the most unstable and unpredictable part of the entire supply chain and requires special attention. Concrete measures to influence consumer behaviour towards sustainable consumption are highly complex. This paper presents a review of interdisciplinary research literature on the complexity of sustainable food consumption and an empirical analysis of selected countries worldwide. In a ‘best practice’ case study, it analyses the organic food sector in Denmark, especially in the 80ies and 90ies, where the market share rose to a leading position worldwide. The Danish example demonstrates that common efforts and a shared responsibility of consumers, business, interdisciplinary researchers, mass media and policy are needed. It takes pioneers of change who succeed in assembling a ‘critical mass’ willing to increase its ‘sustainable’ behaviour. Considering the strong psychological barriers of consumers and the continuing low market share of organic food, proactive policy measures would be conducive to foster the personal responsibility of the consumers and offer incentives towards a sustainable production. Also, further self-obligations of companies (Corporate Social Responsibility – CSR) as well as more transparency and simplification of reliable labels and certifications are needed to encourage the process towards a sustainable development. |
| Keywords: | Sustainable development, responsible consumer, homo oeconomicus, behavioural economics, interdisciplinarity, consumer decision models, attitude-behaviour-gap, organic food, asymmetric information, low-involvement products, consumer behaviour, ethical values, dual action model: mental system 1 and 2 (Kahneman), cognitive bias, cognitive dissonances, Danish Association of Organic Farming, nudges, change agents, proactive state, corporate social responsibility (CSR), Agribusiness, |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa144:206233&r=mkt |
| By: | Guerrero Santiago; Juárez-Torres Miriam; Sámano Daniel; Kochen Federico; Puigvert Jonathan |
| Abstract: | We document the existence of asymmetric price transmission in Mexico for a wide variety of food and non-food products, in terms of magnitude and speed, for two segments of the supply chain: i) Producer (producer-wholesale) and ii) Consumer (wholesale-retail). We find that asymmetric price transmission is a common behavior in many of the good markets that we studied. However, there are important differences across stages of the supply chain: in the Producer segment, the analyzed food products exhibit larger asymmetries compared to non-food products, while we observe the opposite in the Consumer segment. The existence of these asymmetries may have important welfare effects on poor households, since they allocate a higher proportion of their expenditure for the acquisition of goods that present positive price asymmetries. |
| Keywords: | Price transmission;Positive price asymmetries;Food merchandises;Manufactured goods |
| JEL: | D43 L13 L11 C25 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2016-18&r=mkt |
| By: | Stranieri, S.; Baldi, L. |
| Abstract: | Shelf-life estimation has become increasingly important due to the growing consumer interest in fresh and safe food products and the European policy indications to consider it as a key issue for the sustainable management of food waste within the supply chains. To date, no legislation on the shelf life date of the most of food products exists. Several studies demonstrate that logistic management and the technology available in the fresh-cut sector would allow to extend the shelf life date of products without compromising their intrinsic quality attributes and to achieve a more sustainable production by a strong reduction of unsold stock. The aim of the study was to segment consumers on the basis of their attitude towards the extension of the shelf life date in the fresh-cut salad sector. On the basis of the clusters found, the paper discusses if the information concerning such technology is a useful tool to inform consumers on product characteristics or if it entails a risk of information overload. |
| Keywords: | shelf life date extension, fresh-cut sald, consumer, cluster analysis, Agribusiness, |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa144:206215&r=mkt |
| By: | Bonnet, Céline; Bouamra-Mechemache, Zohra; Klein, Gordon; Richards, Timothy |
| Abstract: | Retailers often stock items that are only slightly di¤erentiated from others??di¤er- ent sizes of a popular brand, or di¤erent ?avors in a common product line for instance. We argue that this practice is a form of strategic obfuscation, intended to raise con- sumer search costs, and margins on non-comparable products. We test our hypothesis using examples from several product categories in German and French retail scanner data. We ?nd that, after controlling for other explanations for how margins can vary with package size, we cannot rule out strategic obfuscation as a feature of our retail sales data. |
| Keywords: | differentiation, price discrimination, retail pricing, search model, strategic obfuscation |
| JEL: | D43 L13 M31 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:31198&r=mkt |
| By: | Chenarides, Lauren; Jaenicke, Edward C. |
| Abstract: | While food access is an increasingly studied component of research related to diet and health, consumer behavior and store choice have been relatively overlooked in understanding the dietary health-food access relationship. Especially in areas with high poverty rates, where the proportion of low-access and low-income population persists over time, consumers are faced with shopping at non-traditional stores, which may augment the negative welfare impacts of residing in these areas. Using IRI's Consumer Network Panel, IRI's InfoScan, and Nielsen's TDLinx store characteristics data, this paper develops a structural model of store choice that frames Pinkse, Slade, and Brett's (2002) distance metric (DM) method inside a demand system to model what behaviors drive consumers' store choice decisions, highlighting underserved communities. While the DM method has been used previously to model brand choice, this paper is the first to use it to investigate store choice. Because the store-choice model is based on demand for store attributes (such as relative prices, product assortment measures, store services, and distance between stores), it reveals consumer preferences for store types and provides insight into policy prescriptions that attempt to improve food access. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:assa17:250118&r=mkt |
| By: | Barbara Brecko; Anusca Ferrari |
| Abstract: | The European Digital Competence Framework for Consumers, also known as DigComp for Consumers, offers a tool to improve consumers’ digital competence. Consumer digital competence is here defined as the competence consumers need to function actively, safely and assertively in the digital marketplace. This definition builds on the previous work done on consumers’ competence and adapts it to digital environment thanks to the use of DigComp 2.0 framework as a starting point. This report introduces the conceptual reference framework of DigComp for Consumers that outlines 14 competences and further gives examples of each competence in the array of knowledge, skills and attitudes. |
| Keywords: | Digitally-competent educational organisations, innovation in education, European Framework for Digitally-Competent Educational Organisations, educational policy, digital learning technologies, self-assessment questionnaire, ICT for learning and skills |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I23 I28 I29 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc103155&r=mkt |
| By: | Cécile Fonrouge (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)) |
| Abstract: | Crowdfunding is an emerging form of entrepreneurial finance. Financial flows from migrants and their descendants to their homeland are important. Do crowdfunding platforms disrupt this Diaspora financial flow? Our aim is to contrast and compare the sociology of immigration, Diaspora literature and entrepreneurial finance. We have interviewed all the French Diaspora Crowdfunding startups. We highlighted Diaspora motivation typologies and the evolution of these motivations since the beginning of Crowdfunding. By studying this new literature and interviewing key “Fintechs” entrepreneurs of French platforms, we propose a unique description: Diasporas motivations that are applied to Diaspora and trends on Diaspora investment evolution for this new digital industry. The main results are about the equilibrium between emotional and rational motivations for the new generation of migration, the competencies that Diaspora gives back to the country of their origin and the modification of the hierarchy of financing sources due to the possibility to raise money online. |
| Keywords: | crowdfunding, diaspora |
| Date: | 2016–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01405426&r=mkt |
| By: | Carlucci, Domenico; Dedevitiis, Biagia; Nardone, Gianluca; Santeramo, Fabio Gaetano |
| Abstract: | Consumer expectations in relation to food quality present new business opportunities for EU aquaculture producers who are willing to differentiate their products. In particular, new convenience formats and certification labels are likely to influence consumer choices. This study uses the choice experiment method to investigate consumer preferences and willingness to pay for new convenient formats and certification labels for oysters. Cross-sectional data were collected through a web-based consumer survey carried out in Italy in 2015. The main result of the study is that certification labels are decisively more effective than new convenient preparation formats to differentiate high quality products. However, some heterogeneity was detected in consumer preferences. |
| Keywords: | Consumer, Convenience, Discrete Choice, Ecolabels, Fishery, Italy, LCM, Oyster RPLM, Seafood |
| JEL: | Q11 Q18 Q22 Q28 |
| Date: | 2016–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75448&r=mkt |
| By: | Aditi Sengupta |
| Abstract: | In markets where differences in environmental performance of competing firms arise due to differences in technology and other attributes that cannot be altered in the short run and firms have private information about these attributes, an ecolabel may allow firms to credibly communicate their private information to environmentally conscious uninformed consumers. This may ameliorate the distortion in pricing and consumption patterns in the market outcomes, when there is no credible direct disclosure mechanism and pricing is the only channel of signaling private information. In an incomplete information duopoly market with price competition, I show that even if a credible ecolabel is available freely, clean firms may not always find it individually advantageous to adopt the ecolabel. The adoption of the ecolabel by the clean firms removes price and welfare distortions (caused by price signaling); in this case, the availability of the ecolabel makes competition more intense, reduces market power, increases market shares of the clean firms, and lowers the expected environmental damage. The effect of the ecolabel on the incentives to invest in the development of a clean technology is more complex; the presence of an ecolabel may reduce the level of aggregate investment. |
| Keywords: | Financial Stress Index; Duopoly; Ecolabel; Green premium; Incomplete information; Investment; Mandatory disclosure; Signaling |
| JEL: | D43 D82 L51 Q55 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2016-16&r=mkt |