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The paper presents partial results from an Italian study on consumer perception and knowledge of organic food and related behaviour. Uses the means‐end chain model to link attributes of products to the needs of consumers. In order to provide insights into consumer motivation in purchasing organic products, 60 respondents were interviewed using “hard” laddering approach to the measurement of means‐end chains. The results (ladders) of these semi‐qualitative interviews are coded, aggregated and presented in a set of hierarchical structured value maps. Even if organic products are perceived as difficult to find and expensive, most consumers judge them positively. All consumers associate organic products with health at different levels of abstraction and want good, tasty and nourishing products, because pleasure and wellbeing are their most important values. Results show that differences exist between groups of consumers with respect to their frequency of use (experience) of organic products and level of information (expertise). Reports and discusses results on consumer cognitive structures at different level of experience.

Reviews and critiques literal views of product comprehension which rely on recall of key product claims to measure “correct” comprehension. Presents a constructive view of comprehension where product comprehension is seen as the process of forming personal interpretations of a product′s self‐relevance. Promotional strategies should be designed to suggest, encourage, and facilitate personal interpretations of the self‐relevance and positive consequences of product use. Marketers can use protocol probing procedures to obtain feedback about the personal interpretations consumers form during product comprehension.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two types of shopping aids, that is, research‐supporting and solution‐oriented shopping aids, and examine their effectiveness, considering both consumer and situational factors.

Expanded selection and additional detailed information are chosen to illustrate research‐supporting shopping aids, and personalized product recommendations and product ratings are used as examples of solution‐oriented shopping aids. This conceptual paper proposes that usage of shopping aids has an effect on the purchase likelihood and decision satisfaction and focuses on studying the moderating role of consumer product knowledge and time pressure. The thesis is that congruence between the type of a shopping aid and consumer characteristics, such as product knowledge, or situational characteristics, such as time pressure, should enhance the effectiveness of shopping aids.

The research propositions in this paper delineate how the use of retail shopping aids should affect the consumer's purchase likelihood, decision satisfaction, decision confidence, and evaluation costs, under the moderating influence of product knowledge and time pressure. Overall, knowledgeable consumers and less time‐pressed consumers should benefit from research‐supporting shopping aids (i.e. expanded selection and additional product information), whereas novice consumers and time‐pressed consumers should benefit from solution‐oriented shopping aids (i.e. personalized product recommendation and product ratings).

Retail shopping aids are designed to offer sales assistance for consumers to handle the obstacles to purchase completion. However, past efforts to install retail shopping aids have seen mixed results. This conceptual paper advocates that consideration of consumer characteristics and situational factors is necessary to understand the effects of shopping aid usage. This paper thus contributes to the understanding of solutions to purchase decision deferral and the determinants of decision satisfaction, and has practical implications for retailers regarding providing retail shopping aids to facilitate purchase completion and shopping experiences.

This study examines whether consumers’ receptivity to ethnocentrism‐pitched advertisements differs by country and product category and, if so, why. The two countries surveyed are Australia and India. Australia was chosen as a country where consumers should perceive a high level of foreign threat because it is quite open to foreign products and has a small economy and population. India was chosen as a country where consumers should perceive a low level of foreign threat because it is still tightly closed to foreign products. Findings show that the effectiveness of ethnocentrism‐pitched advertisements differs significantly not only by consumers’ perceptions of foreign threat, but also by consumers’ quality evaluations about domestic products, compared to corresponding foreign ones. Implications for international marketers and domestic manufacturers are discussed.

The market for organic products in Croatia is at the beginning of its development. There is no sufficient knowledge about organic consumers in Croatia. The objective of this paper is to gain knowledge about consumer attitudes toward organic products in the capital of Croatia.

The consumers’ attitudes were collected by means of a face‐to‐face survey. Attitudes, purchase frequency, supply satisfaction and beliefs about organic foods were studied with a sample of 179 consumers. The data obtained from the survey were analysed with univariate analysis, chi‐square test, ANOVA and correlation analysis.

Croatian consumers consider organically‐grown products as very healthy, of good quality and tasty. However, these products are perceived as rather expensive and of questionable appearance. Consumers are not very familiar with the supply of ecologically‐grown products in the market. Some groups of consumers have more positive attitudes toward organic products, and they exhibit an increased willingness to pay higher prices for these products. Therefore, marketing strategies for organic products should be targeted towards such groups.

One limitation of this study is the choice of the sample. Further research is needed to discriminate between consumer groups, and to determine which segments are most appropriate for organic product marketing.

According to the research results an important task for the producers will be to increase consumers’ knowledge of what an organic product is and how to differentiate it in the marketplace.

This paper gives the first insight into buying behavior and attitudes of organic consumers in Zagreb. The results of the research could be used for planning further marketing activities.

To identify ways for business managers to reduce consumer complicity with counterfeit products by better aligning their actions with consumer beliefs of complicity.

A mall intercept methodology was used to interview 54 US and 48 Brazilian business managers' understandings of consumer complicity with counterfeit products. A parallel web survey containing the questions in the interviews was used to assess 401 US and 390 Brazilian consumers' perceptions of what is important to them in determining that a product is counterfeit, the reasons why they were willing to acquire counterfeits, and the perceived effectiveness of anti‐counterfeiting actions.

Managers in both countries held beliefs that ran counter to those of the complicit consumer, particularly in the areas of understanding the reasons for consumer complicity and the perceived effectiveness of anti‐counterfeiting actions to reduce that complicity. Several anti‐counterfeiting actions considered to be of little use by managers were reported to be important by consumers regarding their intended complicity.

As the different motivations of consumer complicity with counterfeit products in different country markets become better known, managers can reduce their loss of business to counterfeiters by directly targeting those factors each country's consumers believe affect their complicity.

Comparing manager and consumer views of complicity with counterfeit products and the anti‐counterfeiting actions that can reduce that complicity in two country markets.

Indicates the ways in which manufacturers can overcome resistance to new products and states that, in response to the risk which most consumer perceive in spending large amounts of money on an unfamiliar product, manufacturers tend to keep to new product ranges which are, apparently, similar to existing products. Emphasises that prior to purchase consumers must evaluate a possible purchase to decide whether it can generate satisfaction at least as large as the price demanded for it. Concludes that herein is offered a structure against which particular problems caused by bias and inaccurate perception by consumers, of the underlying characteristics of new products can be evaluated.

Theodore Levitt's classic article “Marketing Myopia” pointed up the potentially catastrophic results possible when companies and industries view their products too narrowly. This piece discusses an extension of that concept: companies making products for the industrial, business, and commercial market frequently obtain fewer benefits (revenue, profitability, market share) than they might because they have defined their customer too narrowly. In many cases, a company can profitably look beyond the relatively few business users of a product.

This study develops an empirical framework to address how large third-party sellers (TPSs) can apply customer acquisition strategies to improve their performance in consumers’ person-goods matching process and how the platform firm’s similar strategies moderate the effects of TPSs’ strategies.

Using data collected from the top ten TPSs from a Chinese e-commerce platform, the fixed effect model is used to validate the conceptual model and hypotheses.

The study results show that both market detection strategy and matching optimization strategy can help large TPSs improve their sales performance. Moreover, the similar market detection strategy applied by the platform firm weakens the effect of large TPSs’ customer acquisition strategies, while the similar matching optimization strategy applied by the platform firm strengthens the effect of large TPSs’ customer acquisition strategies.

This study provides firsthand evidence on the performance of large TPSs’ and the platform firm’s strategies. It demonstrates the effectiveness of large TPSs’ market detection strategy and matching optimization strategy, which can be adopted to meet consumers’ search and evaluation motivations in their person-goods matching process respectively. Moreover, it identifies the role of platform firms by showing the moderating effect of similar strategies adopted by the platform firm on the effect of large TPSs’ customer acquisition strategies.

This research explores the impact of classical aesthetics (e.g. order and symmetry) and expressive aesthetics (e.g. creativity and distinctiveness) on consumer green consumption.

This research conducted three studies. Study 1 explored the main effect of appearance aesthetics (appearance: plain vs classical vs expressive) on green products purchase intention through a one-factor between-subjects design. Study 2 verified the mediating role of perceived naturalness through two types of appearance aesthetics (appearance: classical vs expressive) between-subjects design. Study 3 verified the moderating role of product identity-symbolic attributes through a 2 (product identity-symbolic attributes: non-identity-symbolic vs identity-symbolic attributes) × 2 (appearance: classical aesthetics vs expressive aesthetics) between-subjects design.

Consumers will be more likely to purchase a green product that has classical aesthetics appearance (vs expressive aesthetics). Perceived naturalness mediates the effect of aesthetic appearance on consumer green consumption. Product identity symbol attributes moderate this effect. Specifically, for non-identity-symbolic green products, classical aesthetics can effectively enhance consumer purchase intention. For identity-symbolic green products, expressive aesthetics can effectively enhance consumer purchase intention.

Existing research suggests that aesthetic appearance can increase consumers’ evaluation of electronic products, beauty products and food, but the difference between aesthetics has not yet been explored. This research compares two aesthetics, contributing to the literature on aesthetic appearance in green products and offering valuable insights for managers’ green products marketing.