Dual quality of products: myths and facts through the opinions of millennial consumers

Abstract

The paper focuses on the dual quality of daily consumption products through the lens of the Millennial generation. According to the literature sources, Millennials are a generation of people that would become the main purchasing power in a few years. There are many diverse opinions on dual quality. Few are based on actual evidence, making it hard for regular consumers to differentiate between what is real and what is made up. This research study aims to sort out the myths and facts concerning the dual quality of daily consumption products utilizing the Millennial customers as a subject of research and information sources. Investigating the topic of dual quality revealed that the greatest attention was allocated to product testing and proved that dual quality existed. In Slovakia, however, there was a lack of research on consumer opinions on this topic. Therefore, the results of this study examining the Millennials' views on dual quality are unique. The empirical research was carried out in the years 2019 - 2020 on a sample of 987 respondents. From them, 395 consumers were selected who met the Millennial generation's characteristics in terms of age. The methodological tools of the research were the Binomial test, Multivariate Regression Analysis and the Chi-square test. As the research results show, the dual quality is most commonly observed by the Millennials with higher incomes and living in smaller settlements. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that Millennials consider dual quality to be the most ethical issue. Based on empirical research results, the paper presents suggestions for companies on how to manage the production and supply of products to different European Union countries without breaking the rules and aggravating the consumers. The proposals are based on current EU legislation and are formulated according to the authors' empirical research results.