Consumers' willingness to pay for ethical attributes

Purpose: In recent years, there has been a big increase in the use of ethical attributes as marketing appeals. This paper examines consumers’ willingness to pay for three selected ethical attributes, namely ‘Organic’, ‘Recyclable Packaging’ and ‘Fairtrade’ in monetary terms. Design/Methodology/Approach: A modified choice-based experimental design with manipulation of the key constructs was used to estimate the mean value of how much consumers are willing to pay for the selected attributes attached to a box of premium chocolates. The results are based on the responses of a total of 208 consumers. Findings: Of the three attributes, ‘Recyclable Packaging’ has the strongest influence on the purchase decision, although this attribute generates the least additional value. The aggregated result shows that although consumers are willing to pay more for the product with ethical attributes than the one that is without, still around a half of them are not willing to pay more. In terms of demographics, the results show no significant differences between the two genders or different age groups in their willingness to pay for ethical attributes. As might be expected, willingness to pay was correlated with the level of consciousness of the ethical attributes. Originality/Value: The findings of this study help management to think practically about the value consumers willing to pay for the selected attributes. The results show a significant synergy in a combination of ethical attributes in products

Consumers' perceptions of speciality foods and therural mail-order business

Many rural-based farm and food businesses are relatively small but successful companies. They face severe constraints in terms of finance, marketing and distribution. However, marketing food by mail order presents the opportunity for these firms to gain access to national or even international markets. The achievement of commercial success requires that these companies become marketing oriented. Thus, the critical issue for these firms is to identify the needs of existing or potential customers. The objectives of the paper are to establish a profile of the characteristics, behaviour and attitudes of mail order customers

A structural equation model of customer satisfaction and future purchase of mail-order speciality food

Analyses the relationship between satisfaction with mail-order speciality food attributes, overall satisfaction, and likelihood of future purchase using a structural equation model. The results indicate that customer satisfaction is associated with both service and product features of mail order speciality food

The perceptions of pan-European advertising communication: a cross-cultural study between UK and Spain

One of the characteristics of globalisation is the increased level of standardisation in international marketing communications, and advertising in particular. As it has been a decade since the formation of European Union, it is imperative to re-assess how advertisements are perceived and consequently embraced in different nations, when audiences apparently have different cultural backgrounds. This cross cultural study compares UK and Spanish perceptions of 16 carefully selected advertisements, where their consequent perceptions and levels of recall were tested. A stratified sampling process was used to generate 150 UK and 150 Spanish audiences in a survey. The valid samples for analysis comprised of 298 cases. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in the levels of recall of the selected advertisements between the UK and Spanish audiences. Furthermore, evidence suggests that there is no significant difference in the way that the sample audience relate the advertisements to their own cultures. Nevertheless, the results revealed that there are significant differences in abilities of advertisement recall amongst different age groups, which suggest that some age groups are more prone to advertisement sensitivity than others. These results are encouraging for both academics and practitioners as the standardisation of pan-European advertising campaigns can be recognised as a viable option, and the economy of scales of advertising can be exploited

Consumer adoption of online music services: the influence of perceived risks and risk relief strategies

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to offer insights into what consumers are looking for when downloading music and what different consumer groups might look for in commercial online music services, based on their current level of music downloading, and their likelihood of purchasing music online in the near future. Design/methodology/approach - The literature review focused on the risk and adoption theories. Interviews were used to help derive variables used in the design of a questionnaire. A web survey of 211 samples was used as a data collection method for this study. Findings - The results suggest that performance and time-loss aspects of perceived risks are playing an important role, while social and psychological aspects of risks are of the least concern to consumers. Where different types of users are concerned, those with the most experience of downloading music are the least profitable segment to target. Non and Light downloaders, on the other hand, should be the focus of marketing activities, although their needs are different. Originality/value - This paper highlighted that different groups have different behaviours towards downloading music. The finding helps the online music providers to focus on and capture the new age downloaders

The characteristics of supermarket shoppers in Beijing

Retail shopping establishments in the West have evolved through many different stages, in close association with Western lifestyles. The growth of supermarkets has been an important part of this trend, and in the 1980s, they were introduced in China. With their distinctive business environment, it is significant to study the success of the distribution technology transfer and how the Chinese consumers have received the Western shopping approach. This study examines supermarket shoppers in Beijing. The results provide an insight into the shopping patterns of Chinese consumers and identify potential problems for international retailers

Female self-gifts buying behaviour: impulse purchase and product involvement

This research examines the effect of product involvement on impulse buying behaviour for self-gifts. An experiment based on a factorial design was conducted among 152 females. Product involvement and self-gift giving context were manipulated by using two scenarios. The dependent variable of impulse buying behaviour was measured with a 6-item impulsivity scale. Results indicate that impulse self-gifting is likely to happen when consumers want to reward themselves after a success. Impulse buying tendency is found to be the best predictor for impulse self-gifting. The higher the level of product involvement is the more impulsive the purchase of a self-gift

Anomalous Heat Conduction and Anomalous Diffusion in Low Dimensional Nanoscale Systems

Thermal transport is an important energy transfer process in nature. Phonon is the major energy carrier for heat in semiconductor and dielectric materials. In analogy to Ohm's law for electrical conductivity, Fourier's law is a fundamental rule of heat transfer in solids. It states that the thermal conductivity is independent of sample scale and geometry. Although Fourier's law has received great success in describing macroscopic thermal transport in the past two hundreds years, its validity in low dimensional systems is still an open question. Here we give a brief review of the recent developments in experimental, theoretical and numerical studies of heat transport in low dimensional systems, include lattice models, nanowires, nanotubes and graphenes. We will demonstrate that the phonon transports in low dimensional systems super-diffusively, which leads to a size dependent thermal conductivity. In other words, Fourier's law is breakdown in low dimensional structures