Product-Country Images in Canada and in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper presents the results of a cross-national survey of 209 Chinese and 175 Canadian male consumers. In this study, country-of-origin information was manipulated along two dimensions, namely country of design and country of assembly. Consumer judgments of the quality and purchase value of six product categories, i.e., refrigerators, cameras and t-shirts in China, and automobiles, VCRs and shoes in Canada were obtained in a multi-cue context. The results show that Canadian and Chinese consumers put more emphasis on country of design and country of assembly than on brand names in their product evaluations. However, unlike the Canadians, the Chinese seem to associate price with quality and put a very high value on the return and exchange policy in the case of low involvement products.