Specific Product Characteristics Research Articles

Unveiling the Enigma of Blind Box Impulse Buying Curiosity: The Moderating Role of Price Consciousness

This study explores the causes of curiosity-driven impulse buying in blind boxes using the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model and adaptation level theory. It examines how store environment and product factors contribute to customer curiosity, incorporating price consciousness into the overall framework. Insights from an online survey of 306 Chinese respondents indicate that environmental factors and specific product characteristics positively influence consumer curiosity, while price consciousness has a negative moderate effect. The findings also show that customer curiosity stimulates impulse buying behavior and mediates the relationship between store atmosphere, surprise, and perceived novelty. This study identifies both objective and subjective factors behind blind box impulse buying and offers relevant suggestions for governments and consumers on managing impulse buying.

Cannabis-Derived Product Types, Flavors, and Compound Types From an E-Commerce Website

Cannabis-derived products (CDPs) are widely available and diverse. A classification of product and flavor types is necessary to establish a foundation for comparative research, although research aiming to classify cannabis in its variety of products, flavors, and cannabinoid compounds based on public online e-commerce data is lacking. To analyze data from a large cannabis e-commerce marketplace to identify and characterize cannabis product types, flavors, and compound types. This qualitative study was conducted in 2 phases: (1) data mining of the cannabis e-commerce website Weedmaps for product listings in the US between September 1 and November 30, 2023 and (2) grouping CDPs into product, flavor, and cannabinoid compound categories. Cannabis product listings. Product listings and descriptions were extracted from the platform. Coding was performed for specific product characteristics, routes of administration (ROAs), and characterization of flavors. A total of 573 854 unique US CDP sales listings from the platform were collected; after removing 72 842 nonconsumable items, 501 012 were analyzed. Product ROAs included multisystem (205 637 [41.04%]), respiratory (185 296 [36.98%]), digestive (98 941 [19.75%]), epidermal (9487 [1.89%]), and oral (1651 [0.33%]). Nearly half (210 575 [42.03%]) of all product listings included at least 1 flavor, with 247 762 instances of flavors. The 3 most common flavors were lemon (22 106 [8.92%]), cake (19 463 [7.86%]), and strawberry (13 961 [5.63%]). The most common cannabinoid compound type was Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (54 699 [63.30%]). This qualitative study categorized more than half a million CDPs for product and flavor types. Results are needed for comparative studies on product and market availability and can help in assessing concerns about appealing characteristics. The results can also inform future market surveillance efforts aimed at identifying new and emerging products as cannabis policy continues to move toward greater legalization.

Methodological approach to characterize the interfacial and foaming properties of carbonated beverages

The adjustment and control of specific product characteristics, e.g., foaming behavior of carbonated beverages, requires an understanding of influencing factors along with reliable analytical methods. However, due to the overlay of different phenomena, i.e., release of CO2 and action of surface-active molecules contained in such beverages, it is difficult to assess their respective contribution to foam appearance and stability. This study aimed at evaluating a new methodological approach to investigate the interfacial and foaming properties of carbonated beverages. Using beer as an example, it was attempted to establish a correlation between interfacial properties and foaming behavior. To ensure a comprehensive dataset, surface tension, interfacial dilatational rheology, and foaming properties including foam structural characteristics of six different German beers of three different types (i.e., Pils, wheat beer and Koelsch), which are known to exhibit distinct foaming behavior, were measured. While foams prepared with CO2 as sparging gas did not show any differences in foam aging, use of air for foaming enabled differentiation based on beer type. Differences observed in foam structural characteristics and stability could not be related to dynamic surface tension but might be linked to interfacial dilatational properties. Overall, the presented multiscale approach can be seen as promising concept for further experimental studies on carbonated beverages.

Beyond plant-based alternatives to milk and meat: Product and individual variables influence purchase intention for plant-based yoghurt and eggs

The present research contributed new knowledge to support consumers’ uptake of plant-based (PB) foods and the wider transition to flexitarian and PB diets. Focus was directed to under-investigated PB foods – PB yoghurt and PB eggs – which were studied in a sample of urban-living adult Australian consumers (n = 2114). The research strategy used a combination of text highlighting and rating-based conjoint analysis, and this generated insights that were generic to each product category (text highlighting) and those that revealed preferences for specific product characteristics (text highlighting, conjoint analysis). In text highlighting, the results for the two product categories were similar in finding that consumers responded positively to information about the environmental and personal health benefits of PB foods. Negative responses (text highlighting) were observed for information relating to certain product characteristics. In the conjoint analysis, average purchase intention ratings were 3.6 for PB yoghurt and 3.7 for PB eggs, and thus closer to ‘not at all interested in buying’ (1) than to ‘very interested in buying’ (9). For PB yoghurt, the product concept that received the highest purchase intent had the lowest price and was based on soy milk with 3 % fat content. For PB eggs, only the PB ingredients used influenced stated purchase intent significantly, with positive utility for the combination of green split peas and chickpeas (compared to the combination of mung beans and lupin beans). Individual variables influenced consumer purchase intent in expected ways, and the results identified attitude to PB diets and PB product familiarity as most important, with sex, age, educational attainment, food neophobia and type of diet (omnivore, flexitarian and vegetarian) as lesser influences. These results suggest that improving attitudes to and familiarity with PB foods could contribute to support uptake of PB yoghurt and PB eggs among Australian consumers.

Improving Bert Model Accuracy for Uni-modal Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis Task

Techniques and methods for examining users’ feelings, emotions, and views in text or other media are known as ”sentiment analysis,” this phrase is used frequently. In many areas, including marketing and online social media, analysis of user and consumer opinions has always been essential to decision-making processes. The development of new methodologies that concentrate on analysing the sentiment associated with specific product characteristics, such as aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), was prompted by the need for a deeper understanding of these opinions. Despite the growing interest in this field, some misunderstanding exists about ABSA’s core ideas. Even though sentiment, affect, emotion, and opinion refer to various ideas, they are frequently used synonymously. This ambiguity commonly causes user opinions to be analysed incorrectly. This work provides an overview of ABSA and the issue of overfitting. Following this analysis, we improved the model by enhancing the accuracy and F1 score of the existing model by fine-tuning the technique. Our model outperformed the others, achieving the best results for the restaurant dataset with an 85.02 accuracy and a 79.19 F1 score, respectively.

IMPLEMENTASI QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT (QFD) PADA USAHA KECIL MENENGAH (UKM) ANGKRINGAN DI KOTA PALEMBANG

Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), such as angkringan in Palembang City, face the challenge of enhancing product and service quality to meet rising customer expectations. Addressing this challenge is essential for maintaining competitiveness and ensuring business sustainability. This study aims to apply Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a method to help angkringan MSMEs improve customer satisfaction and enhance business agility. By employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches, QFD is integrated into the angkringan's business processes. This involves identifying customer needs, translating these needs into specific product characteristics, and aligning them with production processes. The House of Quality (HoQ) analysis identifies several key areas for improvement, such as expanding the customer parking area, increasing seating capacity, and diversifying food product offerings. Implementing these recommendations is expected to make the angkringan a preferred choice among loyal customers, even as new angkringans emerge in Palembang.

Stock price informativeness and supplier trade credit extensions

We show that suppliers cut back on trade credit extensions as they learn about future growth opportunities from their stock prices. We further explore how suppliers’ financial strength, relationship specific investments (RSI), product characteristics, and market power moderate the effect of price informativeness on trade credit. We show that the effect of price informativeness on trade credit is more pronounced when suppliers are financially constrained, or have less RSI, or are less exposed to inventory diversion risks, or have high market power. These results suggest that stock price informativeness is a second order factor whereas financial strength, relationship specific investments (RSI), product characteristics, and market power are the first order factors in shaping suppliers’ trade credit policies.

Methodology of Designing Digital Services for the Educational Market

The article discusses methodological aspects and practical experience in designing digital services for the educational market. There are defined basic requirements for the creation of digital services, their properties and characteristics. Based on the theoretical analysis, it is proved that the most promising way of designing digital services, which determines their configuration and user capabilities, is the platform approach. The analysis of the available educational platforms is carried out, their advantages and disadvantages are shown. The authors present a digital services designing methodology of their own, worked out with the help of the progressive Agile and Waterfall methodologies. The paper gives an example of the developed methodology approbation within the project of the Citadel Education online learning platform, focused on the implementation of adaptive educational programs with the possibility of choosing individual trajectories. This research is brand new, as it systematizes theoretical ideas about the creation of digital services with specific product characteristics and develops a methodological base for the creation of customized and technological educational services that meet today’s user needs. The results of the study are of particular interest in the context of foreign educational platforms withdrawal from the Russian market and may be useful for university leaders, who solve the problems of improving educational programs competitiveness, implementing hybrid learning models, and managing the portfolio of training courses.

β-glucan rich functional instant talbina (porridge) premix from barley flour using extrusion: investigating effect of varied moisture and barrel temperature levels using response surface approach

PurposeThroughout the world, there has been a dramatic increase in the demand for functional food products. Owing to the health benefits of barley, its utilization was explored for the development of β-glucan rich functional instant talbina (porridge). The present research was, therefore, undertaken with an aim to optimize the extrusion conditions for development of instant talbina premix and evaluate its functional and quality characteristics.Design/methodology/approachThe independent variables i.e. barrel temperature (105–125°C) and feed moisture (12–20%) were studied to determine their influence on the system parameter i.e. specific mechanical energy and product characteristics i.e. bulk density, breaking strength, water absorption index, expansion ratio, water solubility index, L*, a* and b* by employing a central composite rotatable design.FindingsAll the quality parameters were significantly (p < 0.05) influenced by independent variables. The regression models obtained for all the responses showed higher coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.99). The optimum extrusion conditions obtained by numerical optimization for development of extrudates used for making instant talbina were moisture content (12%) and barrel temperature (105°C). Various functional, pasting, complexing index and physicochemical properties of instant talbina were improved by the addition of honey and milk. The instant talbina prepared from barley flour with the addition of milk and honey showed increase in the β-glucan content, resistant starch, antioxidant activity and decrease in glycemic index with improved overall acceptability.Originality/valueAs far as we could possibly know that very limited or not many studies have been carried out wherein the possibility of developing instant talbina (porridge) have been carried out. As a result, the current study has a lot of potential for the food industry to manufacture β-glucan rich functional instant talbina with improved antioxidant characteristics and low glycemic index.

Different use of nitrite and nitrate in meats: A survey on typical and commercial Italian products as a contribution to risk assessment

Nitrite and nitrate are food additives largely investigated in meats. Their levels depend on the specific product characteristics, and no study concerning these differences is available.This study presents the first monitoring on the specific levels of nitrite and nitrate in different types of meat products.Thirteen types of meat products were collected and analyzed using validated and accredited analytical techniques based on ion chromatography with conductivity detection.The highest levels of nitrite were detected in wurstel and Bresaola, while the lowest were detected in seasoned sausage. Ten samples contained nitrate concentrations higher than the EU legal limits, confirming the need of official control. The highest levels of nitrate were detected in Bresaola, followed by Speck; the lowest were detected in canned meat, cooked ham and cooked meat.Relating to the overall nitrite and nitrate levels, Bresaola showed the highest levels, followed by Speck. Lower levels were detected in Mortadella, cooked meat and cooked ham. The lowest concentrations of nitrite/nitrate were registered in canned meat.A contribution to risk assessment was also presented. The highest percentage of ADI, under high exposure scenario, was obtained for cooked ham samples (8.31%) and for ham consumption (0.40%) relating to nitrite and nitrate, respectively.

A Survey on the Adoption of Patterns for Engineering Software for the Cloud

This work takes as a starting point a collection of patterns for engineering software for the cloud and tries to find how they are regarded and adopted by professionals. Existing literature assesses the adoption of cloud computing with a focus on business and technological aspects and falls short in grasping a holistic view of the underlying approaches. Other authors delve into how independent patterns can be discovered (mined) and verified, but do not provide insights on their adoption. We investigate (1) the relevance of the patterns for professional software developers, (2) the extent to which product and company characteristics influence their adoption, and (3) how adopting some patterns might correlate with the likelihood of adopting others. For this purpose, we survey practitioners using an online questionnaire (n = 102). Among other findings, we conclude that most companies use these patterns, with the overwhelming majority (97 percent) using at least one. We observe that the mean pattern adoption tends to increase as companies mature, namely when varying the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">product operation complexity</i> , <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">active monthly users</i> , and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">company size</i> . Finally, we search for correlations in the adoption of specific patterns and attempt to infer causation, providing further clues on how some practices depend or influence the adoption of others. We conclude that the adoption of some practices correlates with specific company and product characteristics, and find relationships between the patterns that were not covered by the original pattern language and which might deserve further investigation.

Constraint-Based Thinking: A Structured Approach for Developing Frugal Innovations

While thinking in constraints is a key element of frugal innovation, it remains underexplored in the context of developing frugal innovations. Based on insights from the literature and two cases from the medical device industry, this article introduces the concept of constraint-based thinking to drive the frugal product development process based on constraints. This approach is operationalized through a systematic and iterative process to investigate the visible and underlying symptoms of different types of constraints, which are then mapped to specific product features and requirements. It consists of a problem space and a solution space, which are based on the idea that constraints are opportunities to develop innovative solutions. The main components of the constraint-based thinking approach are as follows: first, the identification of constraints or existing limitations, hindrances behind the current status quo that need to be changed; second, a root-cause analysis to understand the underlying causes for each of the identified constraints; third, a mapping of each of those causes to specific product characteristics or requirements; and, fourth, development of a minimal viable product or a prototype. This approach can be used both by companies to develop frugal innovations and by researchers to further develop the link between constraints and new products and services.

Systematic Planning of Quality Inspection Strategies in Manufacturing Systems

Quality inspection planning is an integral part of the production planning process. It is often derived from the experience of the planner. Despite the increasing availability of data during the manufacturing phase and the emergence of data analytics tools to transform these data into valuable information, there is a lack of revising existing inspection activities as part of quality control. In order to adopt the quality inspection strategies with regard to specific intermediate product characteristics, this paper enables the systematic planning of quality inspection strategies based on the current state of individual products within the manufacturing system. The generated strategies are evaluated based on the expected value of strategy-specific costs. To integrate conditional probabilities of arising uncertainties Bayesian Networks are utilized.

How social media marketing influences consumers purchase decision? A mediation analysis of brand awareness

The important usage of social media as highly interactive platforms of communications is bound to change the way companies approach marketing. Many previous studies conclude that social media has proven to be a key factor in creating brand awareness. Thus, a higher level of awareness will affect consumers' decisions positively. However, few studies focus on the role of brand awareness as a mediation construct in affecting purchase decisions. Therefore, this study aims to explore the mediation role of brand awareness on the relationship between social media marketing and purchase decisions. The study conducted is quantitative research based on a survey approach. Purposive sampling and ordinary least square regression were used as sampling techniques and data analysis. The study revealed that social media marketing has a positive and significant influence on both brand awareness and purchase decisions. Unfortunately, this study failed to prove the direct and indirect effect of brand awareness on purchase decisions. The nature of wetsuit (sportswear) that can be categorized as a high involvement product was considered as the main reason for the insignificancy effect of brand awareness on purchase decision and the mediation role of brand awareness. In the case of high involvement products, consumers tend to be rational so that they were required more time and effort to evaluate specific product performances and characteristics.

Occurrence of Yeasts in White-Brined Cheeses: Methodologies for Identification, Spoilage Potential and Good Manufacturing Practices.

Yeasts are generally recognized as contaminants in the production of white-brined cheeses, such as Feta and Feta-type cheeses. The most predominant yeasts species are Debaryomyces hansenii, Geotrichum candidum, Kluyveromyces marxianus, Kluyveromyces lactis, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, and Trichosporon spp. Although their spoilage potential varies at both species and strain levels, yeasts will, in case of excessive growth, present a microbiological hazard, effecting cheese quality. To evaluate the hazard and trace routes of contamination, the exact taxonomic classification of yeasts is required. Today, identification of dairy yeasts is mainly based on DNA sequencing, various genotyping techniques, and, to some extent, advanced phenotypic identification technologies. Even though these technologies are state of the art at the scientific level, they are only hardly implemented at the industrial level. Quality defects, caused by yeasts in white-brined cheese, are mainly linked to enzymatic activities and metabolism of fermentable carbohydrates, leading to production of metabolites (CO2, fatty acids, volatile compounds, amino acids, sulfur compounds, etc.) and resulting in off-flavors, texture softening, discoloration, and swelling of cheese packages. The proliferation of spoilage yeast depends on maturation and storage conditions at each specific dairy, product characteristics, nutrients availability, and interactions with the co-existing microorganisms. To prevent and control yeast contamination, different strategies based on the principles of HACCP and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) have been introduced in white-brined cheese production. These strategies include milk pasteurization, refrigeration, hygienic sanitation, air filtration, as well as aseptic and modified atmosphere packaging. Though a lot of research has been dedicated to yeasts in dairy products, the role of yeast contaminants, specifically in white-brined cheeses, is still insufficiently understood. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge on the identification of contaminant yeasts in white-brined cheeses, their occurrence and spoilage potential related to different varieties of white-brined cheeses, their interactions with other microorganisms, as well as guidelines used by dairies to prevent cheese contamination.

A design navigator to guide the transition towards environmentally benign product/service systems based on LCA results

With rising societal demands for a transition towards a circular economy and intensifying market competition, manufacturing companies are increasingly seeking alternative ways to design and develop their industrial offerings with reduced environmental impacts and increased value. A possible solution lies in designing environmentally benign product/service systems (PSSs), which often requires the redesign of existing offerings in industrial practice.This article presents a design navigator named lifecycle-oriented function deployment (LFD), which builds on the widely utilized life cycle assessment (LCA) and quality function deployment (QFD) to support the redesign of existing industrial offerings towards PSSs with reduced environmental impacts. LFD includes a novel procedure to derive environmental requirements using LCA and to prioritize them along with customer requirements. It introduces a list of generic service design characteristics to support service design. It also contains a QFD-based procedure to identify design parameters (characteristics and components for both products and services) that have a relatively strong influence on the prioritized requirements. Further, a novel way is proposed to capture specific product and service design characteristics that are feasible to integrate and potentially have a rather strong influence on the requirements when combined.LFD is subsequently applied in a case study to conceptually redesign an existing offering in a manufacturing company. The application is then assessed using an LCA and a semi-structured interview with the users of LFD. The LCA results indicate significant reductions in environmental impacts of the redesigned concepts, and the interview revealed benefits for the practitioners who used LFD.

Investigation on mild extrusion cooking for development of snacks using rice and chickpea flour blends

A study was conducted to optimize the mild extrusion cooking conditions for development of rice and chickpea based extrudates. The independent variables i.e. extrusion parameters (Screw speed, barrel temperature), feed moisture and proportions of rice flour and chickpea flour were varied using central composite rotatable design (CCRD), and their effects on system parameter- Specific mechanical energy (SME) and product characteristics i.e., water absorption index (WAI), water solubility index (WSI), bulk density (BD), expansion ratio (ER), breaking strength (BS), colour values (L*, a* and b*) and overall acceptability (OA) were studied. All the system and product responses were significantly affected by independent variables. Response surface and regression models were established to determine the responses as function of process variables. Models obtained were highly significant with high coefficient of determination (R2 ≥ 0.889). The optimum mild extrusion conditions obtained by numerical optimization for development of snacks were 102°C barrel temperature, 281rpm screw speed, 18.3% feed moisture and rice to chickpea flour ratio as 90:10. Storage studies confirmed that the developed snacks can be stored better in laminated pouches than in high density polyethylene (HDPE) bags for a period of 6months under ambient conditions.

Consumer preferences for organic labels in Germany using the example of apples – Combining choice-based conjoint analysis and eye-tracking measurements

Abstract Organic food products are considered as credence goods. Hence, organic labels are important visual stimuli for consumers to determine how a good was produced. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the literature by examining the visual attention patterns and preferences of consumers in a choice experiment by measuring their eye movements using eye-tracking technology and comparing the results with the findings from choice-based conjoint analysis (CBCA) and other stated preference methods. For this reason, 73 consumers participated in an experiment in 2017 in Germany. The combination of eye-tracking and CBCA can help to overcome some major limitations of choice experiments. For example, low levels of a attribute's part-worth utility can be caused by the participants low preference regarding that attribute or that he/she just haven't viewed the attribute. Our findings indicate that consumers who gain greater utilities from specific attributes of a good also attend to them visually to a greater extent. The study's results also suggest that a combination of stated preference methods with eye-tracking technology has the potential of solving some major limitations of these methods such as social desirability, memory limitations and lack of visual attention to specific product characteristics.

Diversification, Branding, and Performance of Professional Service Firms.

This article analyzes the effects of diversification and brand breadth on firm performance for professional service firms (PSFs). The research aim is two-fold. First, we test whether moving into products may put at risk the core resources that sustain PSFs’ competitive advantage. Second, we study which branding strategies best match their diversification attempts. Broad (narrow) brands characterize a branding strategy with scarce (plentiful) associations to specific product characteristics. We analyzed trademark portfolios of 47 U.S.-based management consulting firms in the 2000 to 2009 time period. Panel regression results suggest that (1) PSFs always benefit from diversification when they remain pure-service providers; (2) performance is positively related to a strategy of specialized narrow brands.

“The Mediating Role of Marketing Strategy in the Effect of Antecedents on Export Performance : in the case of of Oil Seeds, Pulses and Coffee Exporting Companies in Ethiopia.”

This study examined the impact of specific firm, product, industry, and export market characteristics, as well as export marketing strategy (product adaptation, price competitiveness, promotion adaptation and support to foreign distributor) on the export performance On Export Performance of Selected Export Companies in Ethiopia. Data were gathered from 100 marketing strategists via a structured surveyfrom firms engaged in exporting four product categories (coffee, livestock products (leather, live animals and meat), oil seeds and pulses) which has been operating since 1986. The results indicatedthat the four explanatoryvariables have a direct positive and significant effect on overall export performance. Export strategy (product adaptation, price competitiveness and promotion adaptation) also played a significant mediating role on export performance. However, support for distributers strategy has played a positiveand an insignificant role in explaining the export performance. Overall the study finding implied that marketing-mix strategyhas a mediating effect on the relationship. The findings can be generalized only for those sectors studied and provide export managers withuseful insights.