Consumer education

Abstract

Consumer education is a by‐product of consumer information and consumer protection. The growth of consumer consciousness in the course of the last decade has caused a great awareness of the need for consumer education. One of the main factors in bringing about the current, greater, consumer awareness was the publication of Which? (and for some years Shopper's Guide). Which? reports the results of comparative tests of goods and services available to the shopper. When the first issue appeared in 1957, it made a tremendous impact because, for the first time in this country, the names and prices of all the brands and models tested were given, in full, side by side with the results of the tests and the assessments of the product's value, even where a product was ‘not recommended’. When this first Which? was published, the word consumer was hardly used, and the concept of consumer research (research on behalf of the consumer, not — like market research — into his preferences) was not clearly defined, nor were the differences between consumer protection, consumer enlightenment, and consumer information. These are all inter‐dependent and all, to a certain extent, aspects of consumer education. But unlike most other subjects, consumer education involved the adult long before there was any thought of it being of importance to the adolescent or child.

Citation

Rudinger, E. (1967), "Consumer education", Education + Training, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 18-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb015785