Consumer Perceptions Of Quality Research Articles

Preharvest potassium silicate sprays on consumer-perceived quality variables and antioxidant concentrations in cherries at harvest and after low-temperature storage

Preharvest potassium silicate sprays on consumer-perceived quality variables and antioxidant concentrations in cherries at harvest and after low-temperature storage

Determinants of Perceived Product Quality and its Impact on Distributor’s Performance: The Moderating Role of Brand Likeability

This study examines the complex relationship among brand association, image, loyalty, and attachment and perceived product quality. It also examines how brand likeability moderates this relationship. The study investigates these dynamics to determine how consumer-brand interactions affect product quality perceptions. Customers evaluate product quality beyond intrinsic qualities in competitive markets. Brand association, image, loyalty, and attachment form these values. Understudied is brand likeability's moderating role in these correlations. Analyzing consumer-brand interactions on product quality fills this gap. This study uses a quantitative-methods approach. A varied sample of consumers is asked about brand association, image, loyalty, attachment, product quality, and likeability. Analysis of direct and moderated effects uses structural equation modeling (SEM). The study found that brand association, image, loyalty, and attachment significantly impact perceived product quality. Consumers with strong positive associations, a positive brand image, great brand loyalty, and a profound emotional commitment to a brand see its items as higher quality. In particular, brand likeability moderates these relationships. Brand likeability enhances the effects of brand association, image, loyalty, and attachment on product quality. Brand-related characteristics greatly influence customer product quality perceptions when they like a brand. This study provides valuable insights for brand managers and marketers. First, it stresses the necessity of positive brand associations, images, loyalty, and attachment to boost product quality. Second, brand likeability amplifies these brand variables. Brands should provide engaging, realistic, and emotionally appealing experiences to increase likeability. Understanding these relationships can help marketers brand and communicate products, influencing consumer quality perceptions. This study adds to marketing literature by analyzing how brand connection, image, loyalty, and attachment affect product quality. Brand likeability moderates consumer-brand interactions, revealing their complexity. This research helps brands and marketers improve branding and consumer interactions, enhancing product quality and brand success.

Influence of Discount Prices on Consumer Perceptions of Quality, Savings, and Value for Handbags and Shoes Brand Charles & Keith

This study examines the influence of discount prices on consumers' perceptions of savings and quality and how these perceptions affect their perceived value. The research focuses on consumers who have purchased handbags or shoes from the Charles & Keith brand in Yogyakarta. The study adopts a quantitative approach, collecting data through an online questionnaire distributed to 210 respondents using Google Forms. Non-probability sampling, specifically purposive sampling, is employed for sample selection. The collected data is analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS software version 4.0. The results indicate that almost all hypotheses are accepted, except for the relationship between discount prices and perceived quality. Price discounts intended to attract potential customers do not influence the perceived quality. Theoretically, this research enriches the literature on discount prices’ impact on consumer perceptions. The findings are expected to serve as a foundation for marketing managers in formulating marketing strategies, particularly in addressing factors related to product quality, product value, and discount prices in the target consumer's perception.

Consumer Perception of Quality in the Gasoline Industry: A Value-Attribution Perspective

Consumer Perception of Quality in the Gasoline Industry: A Value-Attribution Perspective

Competing on price and guarantee compensation: Heeding cloud consumer's quality perception

As frequent service failures raise user concerns, guarantee compensation has become a competitive instrument for cloud service providers (CSPs) in addition to price. This study proposes a game-theoretical model where two CSPs compete on both price and compensation. We consider two roles of compensation: (1) remedying user losses and (2) helping users to form quality perception. The results indicate that the higher-quality CSP should always guarantee higher compensation but may not always charge a higher price. We further investigate the signaling policies and find that the lower-quality CSP is more likely to signal a higher-than-actual quality.

When reality backfires: Product evaluation context and the effectiveness of augmented reality in e‐commerce

AbstractAugmented reality (AR) enables consumers to project product holograms into their surrounding real‐world context in real time using their mobile devices. Although AR may improve online consumers' product evaluation, AR‐deploying retailers give up control over the context in which their products are evaluated. As a result, AR retailers' products might end up being evaluated in unfavorable contexts, such as disorganized rooms. Negative spillover effects from such unfavorable AR contexts onto the perceptions of evaluated products may lead consumers to refrain from purchasing the products. In two online experiments and a controlled field study with a total of 1000 participants, we find that unfavorable AR contexts negatively affect consumers' product‐related purchase intention. This relationship is serially mediated by processing disfluency and deteriorating product quality perceptions of consumers. The negative contextual effects are mitigated if the product under evaluation is of unique design and thus more conceptually fluent or if the AR context becomes less perceptually salient and thus the product more perceptually fluent. We discuss diminished reality and facilitated product comparisons via AR as potential countermeasures for AR retailers and provide suggestions for future research.

A Study on Premium Packaging for Fresh Agricultural Products

This paper provides a value proposition and an assessment of customer value based on producers and consumer-perceived quality to utilize premium packaging for agricultural products. This paper concentrates on assessing the definition of premium packaging from customers’ perspectives, trends in fruits and vegetables premium packaging and studying the marketing implications resulting from the use of premium packaging. A total of 386 consumers and 54 wholesalers completed the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, comparison of mean test and finally SWOT analysis was implemented to suggest strategic actions. Most of the respondents are interested in purchasing agricultural products using premium packaging. The most common products identified for premium packaging are red apples, tomato, celery, and flowers. The impact of household income is identified by the willingness to pay premium packaging for agricultural products according to household income. Because a premium image is of critical importance for many consumer goods, it is important for both designers and marketers to have a comprehensive understanding of the packaging characteristics that can evoke such a premium perception. The present research integrates knowledge from design research and marketing research to enhance the understanding of the role of packaging design in shaping consumers’ product perceptions. Considerations when designing premium packaging could be four premium cues (extraordinary differentiation, high quality of packaging materials, minimalistic design, and authenticity) as important guidelines. When these premium cues are implemented in a packaging design, consumers will recognize the product as a superior, high-quality product that is worth a higher price.

Consumer perception of marbling and beef quality during purchase and consumer preferences for degree of doneness.

Understanding consumer perception of meat quality in developing countries is an important issue since consumer perception of quality could be highly variable. In the current study, consumers' purchasing preferences affected by marbling and perception of quality were evaluated in a survey study. Furthermore, consumers' preferences for degree of doneness were investigated using both survey and consumer panel studies. The study was carried out in two phases. Firstly, a survey was conducted in Adana Province, Turkey to collect data related to the attributes affecting consumers' meat purchase decision and consumers' degree of doneness preferences. In the second phase, boneless ribeye was used to investigate consumers' degree of doneness preferences in a consumer panel. In addition, proximate analyses of the samples were conducted. The survey study using pictures of marbling illustrations indicated that higher degrees of marbling might be considered too fatty to be purchased by consumers. Consumers' perceptions regarding the relationship between marbling and beef quality further indicated that marbling might not be acknowledged as a cue of a higher quality meat. Nevertheless, the results of the importance of some attributes related to intrinsic and extrinsic quality cues showed that consumers were looking for the cues that indicated not only quality but also safety of the meat during meat purchase. The results of both survey and consumer panel studies revealed that consumers might prefer higher degrees of doneness while consuming meat since a majority of the consumers' preference of degree of doneness was at least well done. This study revealed that consumer purchasing preferences might vary between countries regarding marbling and perception of quality. Furthermore, higher degrees of doneness could be the preference of these consumers. Thus, further studies are needed to increase consumer satisfaction in these countries.

Differentiated subsidy mechanism for promoting construction and demolition waste recycling

Low acceptance of recycled materials and inefficient government policies remain to be great challenges to promote construction and demolition (C&D) waste recycling. However, limited efforts have been devoted to evaluating the effectiveness of government subsidies in improving enterprises profits based on varying consumer quality perceptions. A differentiated subsidy mechanism is therefore developed through game models by investigating the decisions of three parties (i.e., the building materials enterprise, BME; the waste recycling enterprise, WRE; and the government). The results reveal that as consumers show diverse quality perceptions on recycled materials produced by different enterprises, differentiated subsidies should be accordingly imposed between enterprises to increase subsidy efficiency in the cooperation market. Moreover, higher consumer perception could be a partial substitute for government subsidies to promote C&D waste recycling. Although a win-win situation could hardly be achieved to simultaneously maximize the profits of BME and WRE under government subsidies, the enterprise producing higher quality materials (i.e., BME) would profit more from C&D waste recycling all the time. Consequently, when the target quantity of recycled materials is relatively low and consumers show a small disparity of quality perceptions, raising consumer quality perceptions rather than blindly increasing production quantities is a critical approach for BME to increase its profits in the cooperation market. The findings advance existing literature by establishing a differentiated subsidy mechanism that would vary based on consumer quality perceptions. Also, this paper reveals the importance of higher consumer perceptions and the impacts of differentiated subsidies on promoting waste recycling and subsidizing efficiency.

Supply chain operations with online platform: Impacts of online reviews and manufacturer competition

In an e-commerce market dominated by online platforms, as an important means of disseminating product information, online reviews play a significant role in influencing consumer-purchasing behavior. To study the influence of online reviews on supply chain decisions, this paper establishes a supply chain game composed of manufacturers and online platforms in a monopolistic market of manufacturers and a competitive market of manufacturers, respectively. In the monopolistic market of manufacturers, online reviews correct consumer-perceived quality. In the competitive market of manufacturers, online reviews correct consumer-perceived quality and then increase the level of competition between manufacturers. The results show that: (1) The influence of online reviews depends on the size of the value of online reviews. In the monopolistic market of manufacturers, the value of online reviews, if high enough, increases the profit and demand of the supply chain. On the other hand, a sufficiently small value of online reviews reduces the profit and demand of the supply chain. Whereas in the competitive market of manufacturers, online reviews change the level of competition. The manufacturer makes a profit only if the value of his online review is sufficiently higher than that of his competitor. For the online platform, online reviews will always increase her profit as long as the values of online reviews of both products are not too small at the same time. (2) Without online reviews, competition between manufacturers reduces the profit of the incumbent manufacturer. With online reviews, competition between manufacturers reduces the profit of the incumbent manufacturer while increasing the supply chain’s total profit and the online platform’s profit.

Proximal policy optimization algorithm for dynamic pricing with online reviews

This study investigates whether the presence of both quality- and value-based online reviews help firms make decisions. To adapt to a complex real-world environment, we construct two simulated environments with high and low initial consumer-perceived quality and employ a Proximal Policy Optimization algorithm (PPO) to derive optimal pricing strategies. The simulation results show that retailers can gain higher revenue by considering quality-based reviews only when the consumers' initial perceived quality is low. In addition, retailers must choose an appropriate promotion method based on the social learning speed of the consumer group. When the social learning speed is slow, retailers should invest more in promotion costs to improve the initial perceived quality of consumers and thus increase revenue. Compared to the Advantage Actor-Critic algorithm, the PPO algorithm exhibits better performance, provides a new approach for complex and continuous revenue management problems, and can be applied to a wider range of areas.

Compensation and pricing strategies in cloud service SLAs: Considering participants’ risk attitudes and consumer quality perception

Appropriate pricing and compensation terms in service level agreements (SLAs) help cloud service providers (CSPs) attract users and make profits. However, the research related to cloud services mainly has focused on the issue of pricing strategies, underestimating the role of compensation. Moreover, few studies have considered all possible risk attitudes of both the CSP and customers when guiding the CSP to make decisions. Based on mathematical game models, this study develops the CSP’s profit-maximizing compensation and pricing strategies for existing and new cloud service scenarios, respectively. We investigate the interaction between compensation and price, as well as the effect of participants’ risk attitudes on the CSP’s optimal decisions. Considering the different information acquired by users in the existing and new service scenarios, we further explore the signaling effect of compensation on consumer quality perception. These findings inform CSPs in designing and implementing SLAs by setting pricing and compensation terms wisely.

Improving consumer welfare in vaccine market: Pricing, government subsidies and consumer awareness

In practice, governments are commonly witnessed to offer subsidies in vaccine market to reduce vaccination costs for a specific infectious disease. To study governments’ optimal subsidy program, we develop a game-theoretic model with a manufacturer supplying vaccines and a government offering public subsidies. In the model, we consider two typical vaccine price settings, namely, government-led and manufacturer-determined prices, in which the government’s objective is to maximize consumer welfare. Important elements, such as consumer awareness and consumer-perceived quality, are involved, which indicates that the consumers may be informed or uninformed of the benefits of the vaccine. We show that the government should publicize the benefits of the vaccine to raise the awareness level of consumers, which helps improve consumer welfare and increase the vaccination rate. Under a fixed subsidy program, we show that the government will subsidize the consumers rather than the vaccine manufacturer. It is optimal for the government to offer subsidies for both the informed and uninformed consumers (only the informed consumers) when the awareness level is substantially low (high), regardless of with government-led or manufacturer-determined vaccine price. In addition, we discuss the situations in which the government aims to maximize social welfare or vaccination rate, and demonstrate that the equilibrium is identical with that when maximizing consumer welfare.

Celebrity Endorsement and Purchase Intention: What Influenced Malaysian Youth Most?

The celebrity endorsement strategy has changed the way we think about marketing. This phenomenon has shaped a new advertising strategy which emphasis celebrity involvement to promote one product or/and services. In this regard, this paper aims to discover the influence of celebrity endorser attractiveness (ATT), celebrity endorser credibility (CRE), product match-up (PMU), consumer perception of quality (Qua), brand loyalty (Blo) towards Malaysian youth purchase intention (PI). A quantitative analysis was carried out and correlation research design was chosen for this research as the intention of this study is to see if a relationship does exist among celebrity endorser attractiveness (ATT), celebrity endorser credibility (CRE), product match-up (PMU), consumer perception of quality (Qua), brand loyalty (Blo) toward Malaysian youth purchase intention (PI). 138 respondents answered the questionnaire via online. Finding showed only three independent variables that are celebrity endorser attractiveness (ATT), product match-up (PMU) and consumer perception of quality (Qua) significantly contribute to the purchase intention. The study recommended that subsequent studies on celebrity endorsement should consider other age groups (e.g., adult). This study has also restricted itself to quantitative study. To provide deeper insights into the topic matter, it is recommended that subsequent studies should be conducted through qualitative research.

Impact of remanufacturing optimism on competitive quality choice and product-design strategy

Research has shown that managers typically display optimistic expectations for the future. In a competitive market, remanufacturers may overestimate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for remanufactured products. We develop a game-theoretic model of competition between an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and an independent remanufacturer (IR), where the OEM determines interchangeability in product design, and the IR may have an optimistic bias about remanufacturing market demand and adopt different quality strategies. We find that the OEM is always strategic about the interchangeability design of its products. Interestingly, remanufacturing optimism triggers more significant changes in the degree of interchangeability. In some cases, the IR’s optimistic bias can lead to a win–win outcome for both firms. In addition, we find that a moderate increase in the quality of remanufactured products alleviates the weak situation in consumer quality perception. But when the WTP of remanufactured products is generally low, it is more profitable for the optimistic IR to keep the quality of remanufactured products equivalent to new products than to blindly upgrade the product quality. Our findings suggest that applying bounded rationality to issues in remanufacturing may yield new insights into the determinants of product design and quality management.

Role of Extrinsic Cues in the Formation of Quality Perceptions

Examining the quality perceptions of consumers has often been recommended as an international research paradigm. This study is grounded in the Pakistani consumer market to evaluate the impact of food packaging cues on perceived product quality. The moderating effect of consumer knowledge was also taken into consideration in the study. A signaling theory was used in the study for its established predictive power in consumer behavior, marketing, and various fields of research. Based on the essence of the signaling theory, this study hypothesized that food packaging cues cast a positive impact on perceived product quality and consumer knowledge moderates these relationships. By using the sample of 504 consumers, data were gathered using the mall intercept method following a multi-stage sampling technique. The responses were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social sciences (SPSS) and Smart Partial Least Square (PLS). The findings of this study unveil that the extrinsic cues' brand name, price, nutritional labels, and precautionary labels were positively and significantly related to the perceived product quality. However, the country of origin cast no impact on the perceived product quality. Consumer knowledge reflected a moderation effect on the relationships between brand name and country of origin with the perceived product quality whereas it exerted no moderation impact on the relationships of price, nutritional labels, and precautionary labels with the perceived product quality. As the results exhibit that Pakistani consumers rely on food packaging cues for perceiving a product, hence it is recommended that marketers and policymakers develop appropriate marketing strategies focused on the significance of food packaging cues.

A QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH TO DETERMINE FACTORS AFFECTING PERCEIVED QUALITY: A RESTAURANT CHAIN EXAMPLE

The aim of this research is to reveal the factors affecting perceived quality, which is a very important concept in shaping consumer behavior, in a national restaurant chain. Many definitions of perceived quality have been made to date. Quality is painting what is difficult to understand and distinguish. Quality is often misattributed with words such as “beauty, luxury, brilliance, dazzling”. Quality and its requirements cannot be easily expressed by consumers. Explanation of quality and how to measure it is one of today's problems for researchers. The importance and difference of this research is that it includes qualitative and quantitative analyzes in order to better understand the perceived quality and that the researched restaurant is located in seven cities of Turkey. For this reason, it is thought that it will shed light on the food and beverage sector in order to direct consumer behaviors. In the analyses, focus group interviews were made from the qualitative researches that have an important place in marketing research and quantitative analysis was started with the results obtained from these. A face-to-face survey study was conducted and the quality perceptions of consumers were measured. In this sense, the Servqual scale was used. According to the results of the analysis, it has been determined that three dimensions that affect the perceived quality specifically for this restaurant chain are very important. Reliability tests (Cronbach's Alpha) applied to these three dimensions were found to be valid. The study was completed by giving conclusions and recommendations.

The Influence of Consumer Motivation, Perception of Quality And Consumer Attitude Towards Buying Decision at PT. Unikitz United Group Medan

ABSTRACT
 
 This study aims to determine the effect of consumer motivation, perceived quality and consumer attitudes on purchasing decisions at PT. Unikitz Bersatu Group Medan branch. The population in this study are all stores that have made purchases at PT. Unikitz Bersatu Group Medan branch for the 2019 period. The research population that will be used in the study is all consumers who made purchases at the company in 2019 as many as 12,139 consumers. By using the Slovin formula with an error rate of 5%, the number of samples obtained is 99 respondents. The results of the research analysis show that Consumer Motivation, Quality Perception and Consumer Attitude partially and simultaneously have a positive and significant effect on Purchase Decisions at PT. Unikitz Bersatu Group Medan branch. The results of this study are supported by the value of Adjusted R square (Adjusted R2), which means that consumer motivation, perceived quality and consumer attitudes have an influence on purchasing decisions at PT. Unikitz Bersatu Group Medan branch. While the rest is influenced by other factors that come from outside this research model such as consumer behavior, service quality, product quality, product design and various other variables.
 

Where are you from The influence of an unfamiliar sub-national region of origin from familiar and unfamiliar countries on quality perceptions and purchase intentions

This paper examines how consumer quality perceptions and purchase intentions are influenced by country of origin level, specifically for an unfamiliar region of origin (ROO) and by parent country familiarity. We conducted an experiment among Norwegian consumers testing products from Germany (familiar) or Bulgaria (unfamiliar) versus unfamiliar sub-national regions in these two countries. We found that a strategy to help overcome initial negative reactions for products from unfamiliar countries, specifically among younger consumers, may be to add the unfamiliar sub-national region to the product information. However, simply labelling a product with an unfamiliar sub-national region when the product comes from a familiar country is inadvisable. To our knowledge, no previous research has used a trivial COO attribute, (i.e., unfamiliar sub-national region) to influence perceptions for products from unfamiliar countries. The current research finds communication of an unfamiliar ROO can influence quality perceptions and purchase intentions in a foreign market entry.

Tunisian Consumer Quality Perception and Preferences for Dairy Products: Do Health and Sustainability Matter?

Consumer awareness about dairy quality increased in the last years, specifically after recent food incidents worldwide (aflatoxin contamination in Europe, 2013, E. coli outbreak in the USA, 2015). In Tunisia, food security and sustainability are at the center of agricultural and food strategies. Therefore, data collected from a face-to-face survey of 214 participants in three cities of Tunisia were analyzed with the aim to identify the general trends of dairy consumption in Tunisia. A factor analysis was conducted to define the way consumers perceive the concept of dairy quality with regards to health and sustainability perceptions. Then, by means of cluster analysis we explore the existence of specific consumer types in relation to dairy quality perceptions, with clear-cut and statistically solid socio-demographic and behavioral profile. Three consumer types were highlighted to evaluate dairy quality, based on different quality dimensions, such as health and sustainability, experience, visible quality, brand name, price and innovation. The results show the emergence of a specific segment of young and older consumers, more educated, and with health and sustainability concerns toward dairy quality.