Consumers Gain Research Articles

Do consumers gain or lose when managers become socially concerned?

The Friedman Doctrine states, “an entity's greatest responsibility lies in the satisfaction of the shareholders.” This leads us to consider managerial firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities delegated by profit-maximizing owners. Our research follows the Ferstman-Judd-Skilvas framework to examine if profit-maximizing owners could ask managers to be socially rather than privately concerned and its impacts on social welfare, contributing to the literature of CSR by presenting the following results. First, CSR delegation is a dominant strategy. Second, CSR delegation reduces the industry output level. We further show that consumers’ surplus and social welfare decrease in the number of managerial firms adopting CSR delegation. The above results imply that socially concerned managers with profit-maximizing owners are socially undesirable in a market with output delegation.

Consumers’ Preferences for Game Meat Safety: Results from a Choice Experiment

Investigating the determinant of consumer preference for game meat safety is crucial in promoting game meat consumption. In this study, we examined the impact on consumer preferences for a safety attribute, taking the individual risk attitude and the risk perception into account. We used data from a survey and a labeled discrete choice experiment involving 476 Italian consumers and analyzed it with a latent class model. The results show that all consumers gain utility from game meat with this safety claim. Furthermore, consistent groups of consumers who dislike game meat are likely to be risk-averse and perceive game meat as hazardous. Therefore, a marketing or public policy strategy aimed at promoting game meat consumption should focus on reinforcing consumers’ trust in more stringent safety standards. For instance, highlighting the safety measures and inspections involved in the production of game meat can help increase consumer confidence in its safety.

Fake Product Identification in E-Commerce Platform using Blockchain Technology

The proposed fake product identification system employs blockchain technology to address the escalating issues of counterfeit goods. Utilizing a decentralized ledger, each product is assigned a unique identifier recorded on the blockchain, which includes important manufacturing details and origin information. Smart contracts streamline the verification process by executing predefined rules to confirm product authenticity. Integration with supply chain systems ensures real-time tracking, enabling consumers to trace a product’s journey from production to sale. Utilizing QR codes consumers gain direct access to blockchain records, empowering them to make informed purchasing decisions. The system’s decentralized nature ensures information immutability, providing a tamper proof solution for product authentication. Collaboration among stakeholders within the blockchain network creates a united front against counterfeiters, fostering a shared responsibility for maintaining supply chain integrity. This globally accessibly solution transcends borders, enhancing international cooperation in combatting counterfeit products and preserving brand credibility.

Farm Fresh Products Web Market

Abstract: Farmers Web Market represents a transformative approach to the fresh food supply chain, aiming to establish a direct connection between farmers and consumers. Traditional food supply chains often involve multiple intermediaries, leading to increased costs, delays, and a loss of product freshness and quality. In contrast, harnesses the power of technology to streamline the process, enabling farmers to connect directly with consumers, thereby ensuring the availability of high-quality, locally sourced fresh food products. The platform serves as a comprehensive marketplace, providing farmers with a digital platform to showcase their produce and enabling consumers to access a diverse range of fresh food items. Through detailed farmer profiles and product listings, consumers gain insights into the origin, farming practices, certifications, and sustainability initiatives associated with each product, fostering trust and transparency in the supply chain. Farmers have the opportunity to create personalized profiles, where they can showcase their farming practices, certifications, and commitment to sustainability. This transparency allows consumers to make informed decisions about their purchases and supports farmers in building direct relationships with their customers . The platform offers consumers an intuitive interface to browse, search, and filter products based on various criteria such as type, origin, farming practices, and price. Consumers can explore detailed product information, including nutritional values, farming methods, and environmental impact, empowering them to make conscious purchasing decisions. It facilitates direct transactions between farmers and consumers, eliminating the need for intermediaries and ensuring fair prices for both parties. By cutting out unnecessary middlemen, farmers can receive better returns for their produce, while consumers benefit from competitive prices and access to fresher products.

Removing Trade Barriers Between China and India: A Counterfactual Analysis on Export Growth and Welfare

The two Asian giants, China and India, share a long history of political acrimony and simmering border disputes. This often disrupts their bilateral economic relationship along with the overall dynamics of the regional balance of power and the global multi-polarisation order. Under such a scenario, this study aims to measure the impact of a hypothetical removal of all trade barriers between China and India on the overall exports and welfare of 73 sample countries while preserving the geographical trade costs. Employing the structural gravity model under a general equilibrium setting, the counterfactual scenario reveals that India, followed by China, is the main beneficiary of full-scale integration in terms of trade growth and welfare. Indian consumers gain while producers tend to lose through a decrease in prices. Chinese welfare gains are shared among its producers and consumers with light asymmetry. Next, we simulate a unilateral removal of all trade barriers while preserving the effects of geography for exports from China to India. The results reveal that asymmetric trade liberalisation leads to smaller gains for both countries at the expense of certain groups and the aggregate national welfare. JEL Codes: D58, F02, F17, O57

A tonic for the highly stressed: Memories of extraordinary group experiences lead to greater cohesion and well-being

We investigate extraordinary group experiences to better understand how highly stressed consumers gain and preserve long-term well-being from their associated memories. We report the results of three studies that use experiments, a survey, and organizational data from Make-A-Wish. We find that groups who are profoundly stressed and share an extraordinary experience (e.g., families with a critically ill child) create memories that improve their well-being via enhanced cohesion, the perception that the group is stable, bonded, and enduring. We show that highly stressed consumers recharge basic psychological needs through extraordinary experiences and the benefits of these experiences are prolonged by collectively rehearsing the associated memories, a process that causes consumers to come together and experience increased well-being even years after the experience. Through our investigation of special memories, cohesion, and well-being, our results suggest that investments in extraordinary group experiences by the charitable wish sector and stressed consumers is money well spent with long-term benefits.

Revolutionizing the Garment Industry 5.0: Embracing Closed-Loop Design, E-Libraries, and Digital Twins

This study presents an innovative approach for modernizing the garment industry through the fusion of digital human modeling (DHM), virtual modeling for fit sizing, ergonomic body-size data, and e-library resources. The integration of these elements empowers manufacturers to revolutionize their clothing design and production methods, leading to the delivery of unparalleled fit, comfort, and personalization for a wide range of body shapes and sizes. DHM, known for its precision in representing human bodies virtually and integrating anthropometric data, including ergonomic measurements, enhances the shopping experience by providing valuable insights. Consumers gain access to the knowledge necessary for making tailored clothing choices, thereby enhancing the personalization and satisfaction of their shopping experience. The incorporation of e-library resources takes the garment design approach to a data-driven and customer-centric level. Manufacturers can draw upon a wealth of information regarding body-size diversity, fashion trends, and customer preferences, all sourced from e-libraries. This knowledge supports the creation of a diverse range of sizes and styles, promoting inclusivity and relevance. Beyond improving garment fit, this comprehensive integration streamlines design and production processes by reducing the reliance on physical prototypes. This not only enhances efficiency but also contributes to environmental responsibility, fostering a more sustainable and eco-friendly future for the garment industry and embracing the future of fashion, where technology and data converge to create clothing that authentically fits, resonates with consumers, and aligns with the principles of sustainability. This study developed the mobile application integrating with the information in cloud database in order to present the best-suited garment for the user.

Consumer Informatics and One Health: Shifting the Focus from the Individual to the Globe. Findings from the Yearbook 2023 Section on Education and Consumer Health Informatics.

To summarise the state of the art during the year 2022 in consumer health informatics and education, with a special emphasis on "One Health". We conducted a systematic search of articles published in PubMed. We build queries to merge terms related to "consumer health informatics", "one health", and "digital". We retrieved 94 potential articles for review. These articles were screened according to topic relevance and 12 were selected for consideration of best paper candidates, which were then presented to a panel of international experts for full paper review and scoring. The top five papers were discussed in a consensus meeting. Three papers received the highest score from the expert panel, and these papers were selected to be representative papers on consumer informatics for exploring one health from consumer perspective in the year 2022. Bibliometrics analysis conducted on words found in abstracts of the 12 candidate papers revealed four clusters of articles, where clustering outcomes explained 96.91% of the dispersion. The first cluster composes three papers related to patient engagement in primary care practices, using digital-delivered diabetes prevention programmes, or exploring citizen involvement in co-designing environmental projects (such as air pollution exposure and health). The second cluster represents four papers related to digital health literacy and consumer behavior, such as digital vaccine literacy, and food labelling influences and whether displaying Nutri- and Eco-Score at food product level led to improved consumer choices. The third cluster consists of two papers exploring strategies to involve citizens in various science projects while analyzing the quality of citizen-collected data (e.g., mosquito bites or gastropod community dataset). The last cluster contains three papers related to the relationships between human behavior with their environment and their contribution to citizen science projects (e.g., biological water quality in the Netherlands distribution, composition, abundance of debris across sandy beaches in Australia and its regions, urbanization and reptile biodiversity across Florida). Traditionally, consumer health informatics focuses on providing individuals with tools and resources to actively manage their own health. By incorporating a global health (or one health) perspective, our field is now at a crossroad, demanding us to think beyond the individual and challenging us to instill the thinking that our actions not only have consequences on the individual but also on the population and the environment. Perhaps this is also a reflective time for the consumer informatics field, to consider shifting the focus from the individual to one that is more aligned with one health, helping consumers gain awareness of how their actions impact on the individual, the population and the environment, and providing them with tools to work collectively to help decide how their actions may bring benefits (as well as harms) across these levels.

Does masstige offer the prestige of luxury without the social costs? Status and warmth perceptions from masstige and luxury signals

Can masstige consumers have their cake and eat it too? We explore how signaling through masstige (mass prestige) goods, compared with their luxury counterpart, impacts two important sociometric variables of peer popularity: status and warmth. Given recent research that has demonstrated how luxury status signaling confers to the signaler diminished perceptions of warmth, the current research investigates whether signaling through masstige products can allow consumers to enjoy the benefits of status without incurring the social cost of reduced perceived warmth. Five experimental studies lead to the conclusion that this is not the case: Masstige consumers neither gain increased perceptions of warmth nor status. The studies identify impression management as the causal mechanism (Studies 1a and 1b), introduce a way to attenuate this effect (Study 2), and consider how luxury and masstige consumers differentially identify status signals (Studies 3a and 3b).

Consumer Baseline Estimation Analysis for Implementation of Demand Response Programs

Demand response (DR) is the short-term change of consumers energy usage patterns in response to power utility needs. The utility benefits from DR adoption in terms of better load management, reduction of peak power deficits, energy deficits, enhanced reliability, and improved economic performance. Consumers gain from energy bill savings and incentive payments. Accurately estimating the consumer baseline load (CBL) is critical for evaluating the success of a DR program implementation. Estimation of CBL helps to decide the volume of load curtailment, decide the incentives to be offered, and assess the impacts of consumer participation. The real-time domestic 11 kV feeder data of the 6.3 MVA substation of Goa electricity board, Goa, India is used to analyze the performance of the DR program. For CBL analysis time series average, adjustment, exponential moving average, decomposition, and forecasting techniques are applied. For performance evaluation of DR programs, the Artificial neural network (ANN) based CBL estimation technique is utilized. The ANN-based technique of estimation has better prediction accuracy, lower bias, and reduced variability as compared to other CBL estimation techniques. Consumer response to demand changes is computed using elasticity and consumer benefit function. The ANN-based CBL estimation and demand variation obtained from elasticity values are further used to analyze the technical and financial performance factors, for dynamic price and incentive-based DR program implementation. The research can assist a state power utility that is implementing smart grids in categorizing consumers, establishing a baseline, identifying potential demand reductions, and evaluating the feasibility DR programs.

Reforming Canada's dairy supply management scheme and the consequences for international trade

AbstractFollowing Carter and Mérel (2016), we explore the export benefits of reforming supply management (SM) in Canada's dairy sector. A trade model with ten regions and five dairy product categories is developed and used to examine the potential benefits of opening international markets to Canadian dairy products. In addition to a baseline, three scenarios are compared—one with SM in place but with Canada able to export freely. Two other scenarios assume SM is eliminated and there is complete free trade, but with high‐ and low‐cost structures. Findings indicate that, in the high‐cost scenario, domestic consumers gain from lower prices as the domestic supply and exports fall compared to the status quo, but producers are less well off. However, under a low domestic cost structure, Canada becomes a major exporter of milk, with both producers and consumers gaining from free trade. This scenario assumes that domestic producers take advantage of economies of scale, enabling them to compete in international markets. Appropriate policies will be required to reform the quota regime, while minimizing the harm done to dairy farmers.

Crowd-Out and Emergency Department Utilization

When consumers gain Medicaid, their cost of healthcare changes. The direction of this change determines how utilization changes. The previously uninsured see a stark decrease in the price of primary care after gaining public insurance. Due to charity care, they may face an increase in the price of emergency department care. The previously insured see a reduction in emergency department prices and decreased access to primary care. We examine the impact of the prior insurance status of the newly publicly insured on substitution between healthcare. We base our identification on California’s LIHP and ACA Medicaid expansions. One challenge we face is estimating crowd-out. We use machine learning techniques to predict prior insurance status based on observable covariates in cross-sectional data. We find an increase in emergency department utilization caused entirely by those crowded-out whose access to primary care has decreased. We find the opposite utilization patterns for the previously uninsured.

Customer’s digital advocacy: the impact of reviews and influencers in building trust for tourism and hospitality services

PurposeMarketers are focusing on the need for customer advocacy to influence other customers and drive consumption. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether online or digital advocacy influences customer decision-making related to the purchase of travel and tourism services. This paper will also identify the categories of influencers that stimulate purchase for travel and tourism. Influencers do want to know the kind of information customers are looking for.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a primary survey of travelers to understand their degree of dependence on online reviews while making hospitality consumption-related decisions.FindingsThis paper looks at both influencer marketing and online reviews by consumers to understand consumption toward advocated brand. Influencers who are perceived as unbiased in their viewpoints are trending on social media. Consumers gain trust in reviews that disclose reviewer information, number of relevant reviews are present over a period and presence of both unbiased positive and negative recommendations related to the establishment and prices versus performance.Practical implicationsMarketers and influencers alike can gain from the factors influencing consumer trust toward online advocacy and reviewed information.Originality/valueResearch is relevant for all stakeholders as it highlights the fact that consumers are looking at online reviews and one does not have to be a famous personality to influence purchase. It is relevant for influencers, as it highlights reasons for trust and various information cues that consumers are looking for. Research also gives perspective to influencers to refine online strategy and gain trust of more followers.

PATIENT SATISFACTION WITH HEALTHCARE SERVICES: A CRITICAL REVIEW

As healthcare systems move from pay-per-service to alternative payment models and consumers gain access to more healthcare options, patient satisfaction becomes increasingly important to the financial performance of healthcare providers and to patient health. In this context, patient satisfaction is a complex structure. A critical review of articles published in the Quality Management Journal (QMJ) on patient satisfaction is included to assist researchers and general practitioners. Researchers use the basic holistic quality framework as a preliminary step to evaluate the contributions and shortcomings of studies. In previous studies, it was concluded that the QMJ research focused on patient satisfaction from the perspective of the healthcare delivery system. However, the following criteria are less frequently mentioned: First; to understand patients' perceptions of their experiences and how these perceptions affect satisfaction and perceived quality. The second one is; to determine the expectations of the patients regarding what features should be provided during healthcare services. In this study, first of all, studies in the literature on the subject have been reached, and the findings of the research have been compiled and made into a report. The details of the studies carried out for patient satisfaction measurements and quality practices are tabulated. In this table created for the study, the name of the study, the names of the authors, the type of the study, the problem of the study, the number of participants in the study, the purpose of the study, the analyzes made in the study, where the study was applied, the findings obtained from the study and the results to be obtained from the study are included. As a result, widely used satisfaction measures, including consumer evaluation surveys of healthcare providers and healthcare systems, have fallen short. The study review is expected to guide researchers in developing further research agendas to understand patient satisfaction.

Behavior based price personalization under vertical product differentiation

We study price personalization in a two period duopoly with vertically differentiated products. In the second period, a firm not only knows the purchase history of all customers, as in standard Behavior Based Price Discrimination models, but it also collects detailed information on its old customers, using it to engage in price personalization. The analysis reveals that there exists a natural market for each firm, defined as the set of customers that cannot be poached by the rival in the second period. The equilibrium is unique, except when firms are ex-ante almost identical. In equilibrium, only the firm with the largest natural market poaches customers from the rival. This firm has highest profits but not necessarily the largest market share. Aggregate profits are lower than under uniform pricing. All consumers gain, total welfare is higher herein than under uniform pricing if firms’ natural markets are sufficiently asymmetric. The low quality firm chooses the minimal quality level and a quality differential arises, though the exact choice for the high quality depends upon the cost specification.

Device-funded vs ad-funded platforms

We analyze device-funded and ad-funded platforms with differentiated ecosystems supporting apps provided under monopolistic competition. The incentives of a device-funded platform in investing in app curation, introducing its own apps and setting commissions on in-app purchases of external apps are largely aligned with those of consumers, while this is not necessarily the case for the ad-funded platform. In particular, consumers gain from a positive commission set by the device-funded platform because this implies a lower price of the device, and the platform’s apps are introduced and priced internalizing the impact on consumer welfare, perfectly in models of horizontal differentiation and partially in models of vertical differentiation.

Impact of Consumer Loss Aversion on Operations in the Context of Remanufacturing

Loss aversion is an important psychological characteristic that has become well supported in finance and marketing. This paper introduces consumer loss aversion into the game model with two substitutable products in a remanufacturing system. The loss-averse consumers gain utility from comparing the price and value dimensions with the superior product. Our model highlights alternative products competition, product selections, and consumption psychology in a remanufacturing environment. The results show that consumer loss aversion has important implications on key decisions in the remanufacturing system. When the manufacturer faces loss-averse consumers, there is a tendency to charge higher prices for two types of products. At the same time, the sales prices increase with the degree of loss aversion. Further analysis reveals that if the manufacturer manipulates consumers with a high probability of purchase, the feature of loss aversion usually benefits him. Our theoretical analyses are proven by numerical computation and some useful conclusions are summarized in this paper.

Pengaruh Karakteristik Toko terhadap Pengalaman Konsumen Gerai Kopi

This research attempts to examine the impact of the coffee shop characteristics towards the consumers experience when they visit the coffee shop. The coffee shop characteristics including functional, atmosphere, design, and social characteristics. The population of this study are all Surabaya productive age residents, and the sample of this study was determined using Quota Sampling and the Isaac and Michael formula with the respondents requirements are those who had been visiting and/or consuming products directly at Starbucks Surabaya on maximum of 2 -3 months before filling out the questionnaire, with total of 384 respondents needed to be obtained. The questionnaire was distributed online and offline, with total 369 questionnaires are used in this study. This research uses SEM analysis. This research found that only the functional and social characteristics of the coffee shop have significant effect on the experience gained by its consumers; while the atmosphere and design characteristics have no significant effect, as the design characteristics have negative effect on the consumers experience. The practical contribution of research for the coffee shop owner are to maintains functional and social aspects as well as, improving aspects of design characteristics and atmosphere so that consumers gain experience when visiting.

Digital customization of consumer investments in multiple funds: virtual integration improves risk\u2013return decisions

Digital technology in financial services is helping consumers gain wider access to investment funds, acquire these funds at lower costs, and customize their own investments. However, direct digital access also creates new challenges because consumers may make suboptimal investment decisions. We address the challenge that consumers often face complex investment decisions involving multiple funds. Normative optimal asset allocation theory prescribes that investors should simultaneously optimize risk–returns over their entire portfolio. We propose two behavioral effects (mental separation and correlation neglect) that prevent consumers from doing so and a new choice architecture of virtually integrating investment funds that can help overcome these effects. Results from three experiments, using general population samples, provide support for the predicted behavioral effects and the beneficial impact of virtual integration. We find that consumers’ behavioral biases are not overcome by financial literacy, which further underlines the marketing relevance of this research.

Gains from Convenience and the Value of E-commerce

Why do consumers value shopping online? We decompose the value of e-commerce to individual consumers and highlight the role of convenience, i.e., the avoidance of transportation costs. We complement household purchase panel data with precise locations of consumers and stores, and show that travel distance is a strong driver of consumer store choice and the substitution to the online channel. Using a structural model of retailer and channel choice, we report that during 2016-2018 the total value from e-commerce to consumers is equivalent to a 23% discount on all prices. Of this value, a quarter comes from convenience in the form of lower transportation costs, a quarter from intensified price competition, and the remaining half from new online retailers and online channels of existing offline retailers. We further demonstrate that consumer gains are heterogeneous. Consumers far from offline stores or experienced in online shopping will benefit more from e-commerce, whereas consumers who likely do not shop online still benefit indirectly from price competition. Finally, our results show that, as consumers gain more online shopping experience, substantial additional gains from e-commerce are yet to materialize in the future.