Consumer perceptions of foreign products

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate product‐country images, lifestyles and ethnocentric behaviors of Turkish consumers and provide suggestions to the marketers about the implications of the study results. Data for the study were collected through personal interviews in the fifth largest Turkish City of Konya. Study findings indicate that Turkish consumers had significantly different perceptions of product attributes for the products coming from countries of different levels of socio‐economic and technological development. Results lend support to earlier studies conducted in western countries and also indicate the robustness of the ethnocentrism scale (CETSCALE), which was developed in the USA to measure consumer attitudes in an advanced developing country. Also, results of the study revealed that there were several lifestyle dimensions apparent among the Turkish consumers, which were closely correlated with their ethnocentric biases. This study contributes to the growing body of the literature related to cross‐cultural comparisons of country‐of‐origin influence by incorporating consumer ethnocentric biases as well as consumer lifestyles.