Women Consumers Research Articles

Warriors for Lower Prices: The New Orleans Housewives' League and the Consumer Cooperative Movement, 1913–1921

During the 1914-1915 industrial depression, a harrowing food crisis gripped New Orleans and the nation. The Housewives' League, a local consumer advocacy group composed of white middle-and upper-class women, believed that President Woodrow Wilson's call for the south to feed itself could break the city's dependence on northern and western agriculture. However, the league decried retailers and wholesalers who monopolized regional produce distribution and artificially inflated food costs to the detriment of the family pocketbook. Avowing that an alliance between small farmers and women consumers would ameliorate the high cost of living, the Housewives' League, beginning December 1915, opened several cooperative curb markets across the affluent Uptown New Orleans neighborhood so that Louisiana truck farmers could sell directly to female customers. The Housewives' League thus joined a host of consumer activist groups around the nation operating cooperatives as emergency food distributors for economically precarious families. (1) Ultimately open four days a week, the New Orleans cooperative markets were sites of frenetic activity. Up to twenty-one produce carts jammed together 011 small plots of city land. Desperate for fresh and inexpensive produce, black, Chinese, and white customers arriving by car, by streetcar, and on foot rushed the laden wagons upstretched arms eager for their bargains. Patrons carted away their finds in wheelbarrows pushed by the small boys of the families, or baby perambulators, and gloated over [ljettuce as big and solid as cabbage, [excellent sweet potatoes, [t]he finest and tenderest spinach, and turnips and mustard greens, and endive and shallots. League members arose before daylight, rain or shine, cold or heat, and went to the various market places and sold ... fresh country eggs, homemade breads and jellies, and crafts. Farmers praised the arrangement, citing profits far exceeding those at public markets. (2) While the Housewives' League had yoked white women's cooperative enterprise to evolutionary socialism and social democratic thought since its founding 1913, league president Inez MacMartin Meyers hailed these cooperative curb markets as a revolution egalitarian food distribution. Reflecting the league's blend of socialist and reformist ideology, Meyers declared, think we are all socialistic, or will get there soon, the longer we find that we can't do the things we want to do. (3) To that end, the league's cooperatives provided white middle-class women with money-saving and laborsaving strategies so that they could devote themselves more fully to achieving broader Progressive reforms and women's enfranchisement. League women emulated national consumer cooperative organizations whose member-owners joined retail associations to contract directly with agricultural producers and distributors, circumventing the corrupt wholesalers and retailers whom the public blamed for perennial food supply crises. (4) Between 1913 and 1921, the Housewives' League rolled out several woman-run cooperatives--curbside produce stalls, World War I cooperative kitchens, and a grocery store--each of which connected rural producers to urban consumers. The history of the Housewives' League's cooperative projects deepens our understanding of how white southern progressive women's organizations operated the 1910s and 1920s. Viewing the Housewives' League through the lens of the national cooperative movement positions New Orleans as a cosmopolitan site of intellectual foment, a swiftly modernizing city emboldened by the circulation of international goods, bodies, and political thought. An outgrowth of the nascent women's club and consumer rights movements sweeping the industrializing South, the Housewives' League, whose inner circle consisted of Jews, northerners, and immigrants, believed that New Orleanians should emulate the socialists and Progressives who were erecting egalitarian global economic and political structures rather than kowtowing to the insular planter aristocrats who controlled the city's social life and politics. …

Impact of developed information package on UV protection for knowledge gain among women consumer

The present study examines the impact of developed information package of UV protection through appropriate textiles among women consumers of Udaipur city of Rajasthan. This study is a follow up study based on the findings of previous study on consumer survey to assess knowledge about UV radiation and its harmful effects on human conducted by the researcher herself on 180 sample subjects comprised of working women and college going girls of Udaipur city which emphasized the need to develop information package on UV protection through textiles and generate awareness programme for women consumers. Total 30 women consumers were selected for imparting knowledge and generating awareness through developed information package on UV protection. Pre and post-test research design was used for present study. Findings revealed that the respondents were having very low knowledge about all the aspects of UV protection. Significant improvement in the knowledge was found as a result of awareness generation programme through developed information package as the pre-test score increased from 31.33 to 68.66 per cent with gain in knowledge of about 37.33 per cent.

Sexual Pain Disorders in Spanish Women Drug Users

ABSTRACTBackground: The impact of pain in sexuality, couple relationships and the quality of life is very well known. Objectives: The relationship between substance abuse and the presence of sexual pain disorder is assessed, together with anxiety and sexual attitudes. Method: Two samples were selected. One sample for women with a history of substance abuse (n = 129), and another one of women nonconsumers (n = 129). The Golombok Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction (GRISS), the Sexual Opinion Survey (SOS) and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaires were used. Results: The results indicate that women consumers obtained a higher mean scores in sexual pain disorder (4.88 > 2.89, that is 65.12%), plus higher mean scores on state anxiety (23.82 > 14.56) and trait anxiety (30.93 > 16.95), and lower average figure in erotophilia (84.93 < 95.81). It was also verified that the period of abstinence does not improve sexual response. Conclusions: Substance consumption affects sexual response in women negatively. Sexual response does not improve with abstinence period.

Bicycling and Gender: Targeting Guides to Women

As the usage of bicycles increases, cities are transforming their planning processes to incorporate this sustainable mode of transportation. In spite of bicycling’s importance to communities, there is a gender gap. Data indicates that only a small number of cyclists are women. This paper addresses that gender gap with an eye toward the marketing strategy known as transportation demand management (TDM). TDM provides lessons for communities looking to encourage greater levels of bicycle riding. To do this we review the literature on best practices in marketing to women, and evaluate different bicycle marketing guides. We find, after an analysis to pinpoint best practices, that only 15% of the marketing guides are targeted to women. The lessons learned from our study provide information for the design of future bicycle guides that will appeal to women consumers.

Structural Relationships between Disruptive Attributes and Women Consumers’ Attitude when Using Mobile Retailing

&lt;p&gt;This study aims to examine the structural relationship between disruptive attributes and women consumers’ attitude when using Mobile Retailing. A total of 486 completed sets of structured self-administered questionnaires were analyzed using the purposive sampling technique. The sample for this study consisted of Malaysian women who have used Mobile Retailing in the past six months, including mobile retailers and members of women organizations in Malaysia. A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used to evaluate the relationship among the hypothesized variables for this study via the Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) computer program version 21. Based on the SEM analysis, five significant results and two insignificant results were obtained in regard to the direct relationship between disruptive attribute factors and women consumers’ attitude when using Mobile Retailing. Specifically, reachability, ubiquity, personalization, connectivity, and convenience have a direct, positive relationship with women consumers’ attitude when using Mobile Retailing, whereas mobility and localization have no significant relationship with women consumers’ attitude when using Mobile Retailing. It is vital for retailers to entice female consumers to buy their products. The sellers are able to re-observe and alter their marketing approaches to specific target markets and earn a competitive advantage by recognizing their customers’ personal attitudes and subjective norms, all of which may affect their behavior. The direction for future research concludes this study.&lt;/p&gt;

Mediating effect of self-control between life satisfaction and counterfeit consumption among female consumers

Despite the popularity of counterfeit brands among consumers, there is surprisingly little research on factors affecting shoppers’ counterfeit consumption behavior. India’s changing consumption patterns necessitate a study of counterfeits for understanding this behavior’s intensity and subsequently the buying patterns evolving on account of it. One of the most consistent findings in the extant literature is that conspicuous consumption is associated with life satisfaction. However, there is little research demonstrating the link between life satisfaction and counterfeit consumption. The present research examines whether self-control mediates the effects of life satisfaction on counterfeit consumption among women in India. Results based on 215 women consumers of counterfeit luxury fashion apparels revealed that self-control indeed has a mediating influence on the relationship between life satisfaction and counterfeit consumption. These results are interpreted as providing empirical support for the importance of self-control as a mechanism that influences the link between life satisfaction and counterfeit consumption.

Financial attitude based segmentation of women in India: an exploratory study

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify factors influencing the financial attitudes of Indian women and then classifying Indian women based on these attitudes. These clusters are then studied for their characteristics.Design/methodology/approach– Literature reviewed led to the identification of variables influencing financial attitude of women. Nine of these variables (anxiety, interest in financial issues, intuitive decisions, precautionary saving, free spending, materialistic and fatalistic attitude, propensity to plan for long and short-term financial goals) were put through confirmatory factor analysis. These factors were then used as a basis for cluster analysis. The study was conducted in the city of Nashik, India, in 2014-2015, using convenience sampling. A self-reported questionnaire was used for the survey.Findings– Results of the study showed that only a third of the respondents did not buy any financial products. The most preferred financial products of Indian women were fixed deposits and insurance policies. Four clusters of women were identified, based on their financial attitudes – judicious consumers, conservative consumers, acquisitive consumers, unsure consumers. An analysis of the dispersion of the clusters shows that interest in financial issues has the greatest influence in the formation of clusters followed by the propensity to plan and materialistic attitude. Fatalistic attitude had the least influence in the formation of clusters.Research limitations/implications– The current study uses convenience sampling which is non-probability-based sampling and hence, lack generalizability of results. The sample for the current study is small, given the resource availability of the researcher and the unwillingness of women to participate in the survey.Practical implications– The paper provides important insights for the marketers of financial services, in understanding the women consumers in the expanding Indian market.Social implications– An understanding of the women consumers would help marketers develop products and financial literacy programs that suit the requirements of each specific group. By doing so the programs and communcation would be more effective.Originality/value– This paper discusses the financial attitudes and behavior of Indian women and further clusters these women based on their financial attitudes.

Impact of User-Generated Content on Purchase Intention for Fashion Products:A Study on Women Consumers in Bangalore

The advent of online media has been instrumental in providing consumers with quick, relevant, and convenient information on products and services. The success of such media has been established for businesses such as tourism, automobile, and consumer electronics- wherein consumers tend to decide on final purchases based on user - generated content (UGC) such as customer reviews and feedback rather than on traditional advertising media. With short lead times, quick turnaround of products, and frequent changes in offerings, the fashion industry is also exploring the use of such user-generated content for marketing its products. This study sought to explore and understand the relevant factors that draw consumers towards the usage of user-generated content (UGC) in the online space for the fashion business, and its impact on the purchase intention for different categories of fashion products. The study focused on the cosmopolitan city of Bengaluru, known for its fashion centricity and brand awareness. It attempted to analyze the factors for reference to media content generated by co-consumers, especially amongst women, and inferred that content that provides them with gratifications relating to social acceptance are more liable to positively influence their intent to purchase. It also specifically identified product categories that are liable to benefit from such content.

Impact of Advertisement on Buying Behavior of Rural Women Consumers

Impact of Advertisement on Buying Behavior of Rural Women Consumers

Market availability and use of sun protective clothing/ accessories among women consumers

Present investigation is based on market availability and use of sun protective clothing/accessories among women consumers. The study was conducted using survey work on 180 sample subjects selected randomly comprised of working women and college going girls of Udaipur city. Questionnaire method was used to gather desired information. Findings revealed that majority of respondents were aware about sun protective clothing/accessories available in market and were using it readymade. Light colour cotton material was their choice, majority of respondents were not satisfied with the variety of colours, prints, materials and also with the type of clothing/accessories available in the market for sun protection.

Predicting Online Buying Using Shopping Orientation - a Study on Online Grocery Shopping among Women

India is expected to become the world's fastest growing e-commerce market, driven by robust investment in the sector and rapid increase in the number of internet users. The objectives of this empirical study is to come up with valid and reliable items to measure the orientation of women consumers and then to find if they influence their shopping behaviour. That is, this study attempts to predict women online consumers using shopping orientation of women. Exploratory factor analysis is used to come up with sub scales to measure the shopping orientation and a confirmatory factor analysis is conducted for establishing the validity of the so obtained sub scales. Logistic regression is then used to model the online purchase behaviour using the sub scales of shopping orientation.

A Study of Determinants of Brand Loyalty in Cosmetics for Women Consumers of Pune City Using Path Analysis via Regression

With increasing competition in the cosmetic sector, nowadays, consumers are repeatedly flooded with information on different brands in the same product category of cosmetics. In such a situation, it might be a very costly affair for a company to ensure brand loyalty amongst existing customers. As a result, it has become imperative for the marketers to have a greater knowledge of the determinants of brand loyalty, that is, the factors that influence consumers to become and remain loyal to a particular brand of cosmetics. In the present article, an attempt has been made to determine the various determinants of brand loyalty in cosmetics for women consumers of Pune city. This study is important, as it will allow the marketers of cosmetic brands in Pune city to focus on the major determinants that will enable them to win and retain loyal customers rather than trying to take care of all the influencing factors. The research paper is based on primary data, which was collected from 597 women (aged between 18-58 years through personal administered survey and questionnaire answered through web-based survey). Data were analyzed using computer softwares like SPSS and Microsoft Excel. Various statistical techniques like chi-square test, factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, path analysis via regression (with correlation matrix input), and so forth were used for analyzing the data.

The Experiences and Complain Behaviors of Counterfeit Korean Cosmetics among Chinese Women Consumers

The Experiences and Complain Behaviors of Counterfeit Korean Cosmetics among Chinese Women Consumers

“New Queen of the Market”-A Study on Growing Power and Influence of Women Consumers in India

[enter Abstract BoBeing women is a gift. They are such wonderful unique creatures. They have spirit, zeal, beauty, patience, time- management abilities and wit and humour like no other. Traditionally, purchase decisions had been an area restricted to the male members of the family. But with the advent of 21st century come with a set of changes in terms of culture, lifestyle etc. This has been witnessed with the changes in the demographic profile of India’s population. On one hand, there is the steady increase in the youth and on the other hand, women population has been able to arise and considered as a lucrative market. With improved financial status, the focus has been shifted towards women consumers in India. Women take active participation in the decision-making process. These lifestyle changes, which is an off-shoot of better earnings is playing an important role in the purchasing roles of women. The present paper focuses on the advent of women consumers, reasons for the same and the various strategies and policies on the part of the companies to lure these new purchase deciders. This paper is based on secondary data sources and proposes to be a framework for future empirical study.dy]

Demographic Variables and Its Impact on the Factors Affecting Women Consumers Online Purchase Intention in India: An Empirical Study

Demographic Variables and Its Impact on the Factors Affecting Women Consumers Online Purchase Intention in India: An Empirical Study

광고회의주의가 여성소비자의 뷰티 브랜드 구매에 미치는 영향: 매체 간 비교를 중심으로

광고회의주의가 여성소비자의 뷰티 브랜드 구매에 미치는 영향: 매체 간 비교를 중심으로

Role of Information on Women Consumer Decision Making on Food Quality: An Analysis Based on Visual Presentation of Dairy Quality Attributes

The purpose of this study was to examine empirically, using food safety and quality attributes presented in the Caswell’s Classification as the analytical framework, whether a consumer’s decision to purchase a food product at a given point of time, in this case Yoghurt and Full Cream Milk Powder, is predominately governed by a 'single' common attribute/s such as 'appearance' or by a number of other attributes (i.e. 'multiple') such as 'packaging', 'labeling', 'quality certification', and 'brand', collectively. This were examined empirically under three distinct food safety information scenarios available to consumers as the product was presented to them visually; (1) 'No'; (2) 'Partial'; or (3) 'Full' information about the product quality. Primary data collected from 200 women consumers from urban household settings in the Gampaha district during May to June 2014 were, in turn, used to derive a Food Quality Information Index (values ranged from 0 to 1) for five different panels derived to elaborate these information scenarios. The outcome of analysis suggests that consumer preference for these products increases as more information is available on multiple attributes, including the 'brand', 'labeling', and 'certification', or in other words, transforming those 'Credence' characteristics towards 'Experience' and/or 'Search' characteristics. Results from Chi-square analysis highlight that consumer behavior is not significantly affected by their age, civil status, education, and level of income. The Journal of Agricultural Sciences Vol. 10, No. 2, May 2015. Pp 109 - 118

Gender Patterns in Women Addicted to Drugs

This paper deals with gender stereotypes and cognitive processes and attitudes of individuals on the basis of gender through discourse analysis of women consumers of legal and illegal drugs. The objective of the research is to improve understanding of the dynamics that promote substance abuse among women in order to face them. The problem is approached from an anthropological perspective, where a qualitative methodology is used through surveys and life stories of women admitted to a Hospital Detoxification Unit. Women participating form a heterogeneous group, in substances consumed and in age. The materials reflect that women elaborate a speech from the gender perspective that contributes to consumption and possible relapse after detoxification attempts. The results show gender stereotypes regarding to consumption patterns and poly-risk behaviors. We found a female speech expressing gender patterns that affect their social world and demonstrate a set of beliefs causing problems in everyday life that interfere their detoxification process and delay or impede them to stop drug consumption. Our conclusions are that gender patterns influence women at the start of drug use as well as maintenance. The treatment of addicted woman must go beyond the current stereotypes through an approach in which each addicted woman learns to worry about the relationship with herself in the same way that she has worried about relationship with others. It is essential to get a therapeutic work to create new patterns of interpersonal relationships that does not fit the cultural gender stereotypes based on submission.

Drawing Life from Ledgers

Drawing Life from Ledgers Sherry L. Smith (bio) Linda English. By All Accounts: General Stores and Community Life in Texas and Indian Territory. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. 257pp. Figures, maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $29.95. A promising trend is underway in U.S. Western history. Scholars are returning to the so-called “traditional” subjects that attracted historians of the 1950s and 1960s. Researchers are once again producing economic, business, political, and intellectual histories that focus on the people who exercised the greatest power—elite white males. But they are doing so with a difference: by integrating the insights learned from the decades-long turn to social histories that centered on those who exercised less power and from the analytical tools of critical race theory, class, and gender. They are consequently recalibrating traditional topics by examining not only the exercise of economic power by Anglo men, for instance, but the ways in which women and people of color interacted with them and, in the process, helped shaped the historical landscape. This new synthesis results in a satisfying blend of foundational works, which for too long have been overlooked, with more contemporary studies and sensibilities. It was only a matter of time before the two historiographies joined. That time has come. Linda English’s By All Accounts: General Stores and Community Life in Texas and Indian Territory is a very good example of this new approach. She uses general stores—or more precisely, the ledger books kept at those stores—as entry into rural economic life during the 1870s and 1880s in eastern and central Texas as well as what becomes Oklahoma. English looks at lists of names and numbers and teases out a picture of social and cultural life in small-town America, with particular emphasis on how class, gender, race, and ethnicity play out. She begins, then, with the barest outline of economic behavior—purchases—and, from there, attempts to recreate a multidimensional sense of individual lives. This is, in truth, a rather slim archive with which to work. Happily, sufficient scholarship on business, consumerism, race relations, immigration, and ethnic and women’s history exists to flesh things out. English is not primarily interested in economic history but rather in what business [End Page 98] activities reveal about everyday life, relationships of power, and the interplay between national trends and policies and those of a particular region. Admitting that general stores lack the fascination of saloons and brothels, which have been studied more often, English maintains they are important because they attracted the widest, most diverse clientele. People of all races and classes, men and women, frequented them. Everyone needed life’s basics, and the better-off occasionally purchased luxuries there, as well. These businesses were important gathering places that displayed a town’s social dynamics. Their records help elucidate a variety of themes: the role of the merchant class in rural America, insight into regional identity, the importance of women consumers, inscription of race onto everyday life, the cultural imprint of particular ethnic groups on particular places, and the interplay between national policies and local consumerism. English begins with a sample of merchants who are all white and, with one exception, male. Some entered into post–Civil War retail businesses with significant assets: for example, plantation owners who, after the Civil War, maintained their wealth as they rechanneled some of it. More typical, however, were those who fit the “self-made” model, relying upon personal ambition, ability, and favorable market conditions to establish their general stores. One man, J. J. McAlester from Arkansas, parleyed information about untapped mineral wealth on Choctaw lands into a fortune. First he opened a trading post that morphed into a dry-goods store near the coal outcroppings. He married a Chickasaw woman, thus establishing a relationship that allowed him entrée to Chickasaw and Choctaw resources as well as business and political ties with prominent tribal members. Eventually he expanded into cattle ranching and mining, before being elected to office as an Oklahoma lieutenant-governor. Anna Martin, who began her life in Texas as a poor German immigrant girl, ended up running the retail business her husband started and went on...

기혼 여성소비자의 소비스트레스 대처유형과 관련 변수: 사회인구학적 변수, 사회계층, 건강상태 지각 및 소비스트레스를 중심으로

This paper focused to classify the consumption stress coping types among married women consumers and to investigate the differences of socio-economic variables, social class, perceived health status, and consumption stress among coping types. Data were collected from 500 married women through online surveys in South Korea. Two factors of consumption stress(consumption stress before purchase, consumption stress after purchase), and three factors of consumption stress coping(Social support coping, problem solving focused coping, Passive avoidance coping) were identified. K-mean cluster analysis classified into 4 coping types with consumption stress coping. 15% of the sample were included to the passive coping type, and 25% were classified into the ambivalent coping type. 26.8% of the sample were identified to the active coping type, and 35.2% were maladaptive coping type. There were significant differences among the consumption stress coping types on education, family income, social class, health status, consumption stress after purchase. Consumer education programs should develop and implement especially for passive coping type and maladaptive coping type to cope effectively with consumption stress.