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The purpose of this paper is to determine consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for organic versus conventionally produced cotton apparel, and to explore the role of purchase behaviors, apparel attributes and consumer beliefs about organics in purchase decisions.

A 2nd priced auction was used to estimate WTP, along with a follow‐up survey to collect information on participants’ demographics, attitudes and behavior.

On average, participants were willing to pay a 25 percent premium for an organic cotton t‐shirt over the visibly similar t‐shirt made from conventionally produced cotton. Participants who pay for their own clothing or make purchase decisions alone were not willing to pay a premium. Previous history of purchasing organic foods, perceived product quality, fit and the participant's race were also significant predictors of WTP.

A more representative sample and the inclusion of other product categories are necessary to generalize the relationships found in this study.

This research helps to profile the organic cotton consumer. Findings suggest that retailers need to consider the income of target consumers when making decisions about carrying organic apparel products. Further, consumers with a history of purchasing organic products appear to carry that purchase behavior across product categories. When marketing organic apparel products, the perception of a higher quality product may yield a higher WTP.

The paper is one of the first to use an experimental auction in estimating WTP for apparel. Relevant consumer beliefs about organics, purchase behaviors and apparel product attributes are also explored.

Managers in higher education require cost effective ways to attract the optimal number of students. The purpose of this paper is to address that general problem at the college level, and in doing so, it points toward strategies that could also be relevant at university and at national level. Two crucial issues are whether potential students are more influenced by parents or by peers when it comes to choosing a college; and whether spending money on advertising is more efficacious than spending money on making direct contact with potential students. The findings provide essential market intelligence for strategically managing the scarce resources available for attracting students.

Data were gathered through a survey instrument and the partial least squares (PLS) technique was subsequently applied to 314 responses.

Secondary school guidance counselors, followed by current and previous college students were the highlights in order of magnitude for non-marketing information sources for college choice. Social life received the highest loadings among college attributes and phone calls from the admissions office received the highest loading among marketer controlled variables. The results reflect the nature of Chinese culture, which is regarded as being highly collectivist.

The model proposed in this study is applicable to students of sub-degree courses, but may need to be adapted to degree and postgraduate courses students.

This study helps educational managers to identify which factors most strongly influence choice of higher education provider, and as a consequence enable managers to make more strategic use of scarce resources.

This is one of very few studies which employ PLS analysis to discover the key factors that influence student selection of a higher education provider, and one of few studies that focusses on Hong Kong.