We apply multidimensional item response theory models (MIRT) to analyse multi-category purchase decisions. We further compare their performance to benchmark models by means of topic models. Estimation is based on two types of data sets. One contains only binary the other polytomous purchase decisions. We show that MIRT are superior w. r. t. our chosen benchmark models. In particular, MIRT are able to reveal intuitive latent traits that can be interpreted as characteristics of households relevant for multi-category purchase decisions. With the help of latent traits marketers are able to predict future purchase behaviour for various types of households. These information may guide shop managers for cross selling activities and product recommendations.

O papel dos sentimentos e das emoções é extremamente relevante para o entendimento do comportamento do consumidor. Por isso, o presente trabalho busca verificar quais são os reflexos do sentimento de afinidade com um país estrangeiro na relação do consumidor com produtos e serviços do referido país. Optou-se pela realização de uma pesquisa de caráter exploratório, por meio da utilização de métodos qualitativos: aliadas às 24 entrevistas em profundidade com indivíduos que possuem ligação afetiva com um país estrangeiro, foram utilizadas as técnicas de videografia e de elicitação por fotos e objetos. A análise dos dados ocorreu essencialmente com base no método de análise qualitativa de conteúdo, com o auxílio do software QSR NVIVO 8. Os resultados encontrados indicam que o sentimento de afinidade com o país estrangeiro geralmente ocorre em função do contato direto do indivíduo com o local, sua cultura, seu cenário e sua economia. Além disso, o país pode assumir diferentes significados para os entrevistados. O sentimento de afinidade atua na geração de atitudes majoritariamente positivas em relação a produtos e serviços ligados ao país querido. Os consumidores, quando defrontados com ofertas oriundas de diferentes origens manifestam um interesse especial por aquelas que fazem referência ao local querido. Ainda, é possível verificar que esses sujeitos buscam manter-se ligados ao país estrangeiro através do consumo de produtos e serviços que lembram o país, o que acaba interferindo na própria construção de suas identidades. / The role of feelings and emotions is highly relevant for the comprehension of consumer behavior. Therefore, the aim of this study is to verify the reflections of the affinity feeling for a foreign country in the relationship between the consumer and its products and services. It was chosen to conduct an exploratory research, through the use of qualitative methods: combined with 24 in-depth interviews with individuals who have an emotional connection with a foreign country, there have also been used two techniques: videography, and elicitation by pictures and objects. Data analysis was mainly based on the qualitative analysis methodology, with the assistance of the QSR NVIVO 8 software. The results indicate that the affinity feeling usually occurs due to the individual's direct contact with the foreign country, its culture, its landscape and its economy. Moreover, the country can assume different meanings to the respondents. The affinity feeling actuates in the generation of mostly positive attitudes toward products and services related to the beloved country. When consumers confront themselves with offers from different origins, they declare special interest for those linked to the beloved place. Further, it is possible to notice that these individuals try to remain connected to the foreign country through the consumption of products and services related to it, what ends up interfering in the construction of their own identities.

abstract: This dissertation uncovers the negative aspects of aesthetics by examining when and how enhanced product and payment aesthetics can backfire and lead to unfavorable consumer responses. The first essay examines the downstream effects of nondurable product aesthetics on usage behavior and consumption enjoyment. Across a series of field and lab experiments, I document an inhibiting effect of aesthetics on consumption. I find that highly aesthetic products elicit greater inferences of effort in their creation, and that people have an intrinsic appreciation for such effort. Because the consumption process indirectly destroys the effort originally invested to make the product beautiful, people reduce consumption of such products because usage would involve destroying something they naturally appreciate. Further, I show that in cases where individuals do consume a beautiful product, they exhibit lower consumption enjoyment. These negative post-consumption outcomes are driven in parallel by concerns over having actually destroyed the effort that made the product beautiful as well as the decrements in beauty that become visible when aesthetic products are made less attractive through consumption. The second essay investigates how the aesthetics and design of a payment (e.g., beautiful gift card packaging) can influence the purchase experience. Three field and lab experiments reveal the negative impact of beautified payments on spending and purchase satisfaction, particularly in situations where usage involves compromising its aesthetic appeal. Specifically, when consumers must damage a payment’s appearance before using it (e.g., ripping gift card packaging), they are less likely to use that payment, and experience lower purchase satisfaction when they do, an effect driven by the pain of payment. In doing so, I identify aesthetics as a novel antecedent to the pain of payment that carries important consequences for spending behavior, purchase satisfaction, and the overall customer experience. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2018

Consumers make trade-offs in their purchase decision making between extending market knowledge from exploring a product market and maximizing purchase value based on exploiting their current knowledge. The value of these strategies can be enhanced opportunistically by taking advantage of promotions. In this research, a new and unique datamining model was developed to process store scanner data for quantifying the brand selection behaviour of an individual consumer in reaction to promotions. Selected consumers in each of Pittsfield’s salty snack, yogurt, and toilet tissue markets were then segmented into four behavioural segments using clustering analysis based on their Prevalence of Promotion and their Value of Information from Purchases. The behavioural segmentation was valid, as the four generated behavioural segments in each product market could be differentiated by using demographic variables. In a product market, the demographic profiles of behavioural segments can be generated andused for improving the performance in targeting consumers. The generated demographic profiles of a behavioural segment explain how consumers in the segment react to promotions,which can be used for predicting how consumers will react in the future. Complementing demographic profiles, dynamic behavioural evolvements in consumer purchase lifecycles can also help to predict the purchase behaviours of consumers in the future from the purchases that the consumers have made. The evolvements enable people to understand how consumers with a given amount of market experiences make their purchase decisions via making trade-offs between market knowledge extension and immediate purchase value maximization. Product markets differ in their available number of brands for selection. The findings generated in a product market, however, cannot be generalized to a different product market. Consumers have different demographic-related purchase behaviours across frequently purchased consumer goods markets. Based on the findings in the research, the dissertation discusses and provides suggestions forretail businesses to improve their performances for achieving a competitive edge.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Aleksan Shanoyan / In recent years across the United States, product sales have seen a downward trend when compared to the robust sales figures posted around the 2010 time period across the major players in the product manufacturing space. Due to depressed commodity prices, large product sales have caused a lot of the dealers to shift in its prioritization of sales from a predominant large product business model, to a more diverse large product and small product strategy portfolio to stay profitable amidst economic headwinds. This study will look into ways that the Company A dealer channel could pivot their internal processes around targeting customers who are engaged in the purchase funnel of purchasing small products and how Company A could change the way the company equips their trusted dealer channel to combat competition in this segment. This study will examine new strategies that may be executed through the Company A dealer network and their subsequent retail showrooms to increase sales by focusing on key product differentiating characteristics, unique technical selling points, dealer facility positioning in high potential Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and new retail digital marketing technologies that should be leveraged throughout the sales process to improve market share. Company B is considered to be the primary rival competitor in this small product market, as this firm is one of the fiercest competitors to Company A’s quest for total product sales superiority. This study conducted a mixed method survey to ascertain what areas of marketing and promotional assistance should be prioritized by Company A, to outfit the company’s existing dealer channel with the right tools to combat Company B and other competitors in the U.S. small product market. Additionally new retail showroom technologies and strategies were based upon existing market research studies, focused on which customer’s and product characteristics were the most impactful for positively impacting small product sales in the United States.

Purpose: This thesis aims to research how homophily affects followers/consumers’ attitudes towards Instagram fashion influencers. In particular, the purpose is to investigate if the perceived level of identification (evaluated according the homophily variables and types of identification) between followers/consumers and fashion influencers is one of the drivers behind followers/consumers’ engagement on Instagram. Additionally, consumption patterns on Instagram will be further investigated, paying special attention in determining if followers/consumers’ identification with fashion influencers have an impact on their purchase intention towards the fashion products the influencer endorses. Methodology: This thesis uses an abductive research approach, together with qualitative methods to fulfill its aim and answer the research questions. The empirical data were gathered through an in-depth interview which eight participants, sampled by purposive sampling ,answered. Subsequently, the interviews were transcribed, coded, and analysed using thematic analysis. The main limitations of the research are the facts that the participants live in the same area and are approximately the same age. Thusly, the transferability of the results mightbe complicated. Findings: The findings of the analysis point out that followers/consumers’ engage with fashion influencers at an interpersonal level, through realization of sharing similar interests and values. Participants have also shown a desire of becoming even more similar to their favourite influencers by altering the beliefs they have in common with them. From the perspective of the theory of Homophily-Heterophily, the engagement between followers and influencers is affected by both, value and status homophily. On the other hand, it has also been demonstrated that identification influences followers/consumers’ purchase intention towards the fashion products influencers endorse on Instagram. Contributions: This paper contributes to the academia by investigating followers/consumers’ purchase intention through the theories of Identification and Homophily-Heterophily. Additionally, the context of Instagram, as well as, the qualitative nature of this investigation are novelties on this field of study. Fashion companies and influencers can also benefit from the results of this research, since they would be able of creating better collaborations.

With the increasing number of people studying online, self-aid learning platforms which help customers（users）study by themselves are more and more prevalent in China. Self-aid online learning is a relatively innovative field which has not been widely and thoroughly researched. This paper used Shanbay which is one of the largest self-aid English learning platforms in China as an example to investigate what and how factors influence customer satisfaction leading to their (re)purchase intention. Based on the previous models and empirical studies of some related fields, this paper outlined a new framework and generated eight propositions to explore these two research questions. Both free users and premium users of Shanbay were interviewed to gather the research material, and the data got from the interview were analyzed to develop the propositions. This paper found that positive service experience can facilitate customer satisfaction from their perceived utilitarian value and hedonic value. Among the proposed five factors influencing the two values, perceived usefulness was considered as the most important factor while perceived playfulness was the least one. What’ more, the relationship between customer satisfaction and (re)purchase intention was suggested to be positive in this paper.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:52:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissTLM.pdf: 2117311 bytes, checksum: e2d88c85ee647701c97879140a689dc3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-11-17 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / The intention of this work is to study the consumer behavior in the choice of retail to purchase food. Being more specific, the work has the objective to identify the profile of the consumers who frequent diverses food retails in the main Brazilian capitals. The identification of the consumers has intention to elaborate recommendations that can be used for retail companies in the strategical decisions of market positioning and adaptation of the store to the consumer profile. So, the work has two bases: the bibliographical revision and the empirical analysis. The bibliographical revision approaches the consumer behavior in general and also in specific food purchase, moreover, it approaches the food retail in Brazil and its characteristics. This revision allows to see the general of consumer behavior and which characteristics of the consumer and others variables are associates with the choice of a retail to purchase food. The empirical analysis has the objective to identify the profile of the consumers of four Brazilian regions in the choice of one or more retail to purchase food. In the conclusion, the bibliographical revision and the empirical analysis are joined to find the similarities and differences between which is found in the literature and that really occurs; because, the characteristics of the consumer and the others variables in the bibliographical revision must reflect on some form the profile of the consumer identified in the empirical research. It is standed out that the fact of the field research to enclose four Brazilian regions, the result in some region can be different of the found in literature because of regional specificities (characteristics of the consumer or local variable). Finally, the elaboration of suggestions and recommendations to the retail companies is made from the junction of the two bases, the theoretical revision and the profile of the consumer. / O propósito deste trabalho é estudar o comportamento do consumidor na escolha do formato de varejo para a compra de alimentos. Tem ainda como objetivo identificar o perfil dos consumidores que freqüentam os diversos formatos de varejo de alimentos nas principais capitais brasileiras. A identificação dos consumidores tem o intuito de elaborar recomendações que possam ser usadas por empresas varejistas nas decisões estratégicas de posicionamento de mercado e adaptação da loja ao perfil do consumidor. Para isto, o trabalho tem duas bases de sustentação: a revisão bibliográfica e a análise empírica. A revisão bibliográfica aborda o comportamento do consumidor de forma geral e também de forma específica na compra de alimentos, além disso, aborda os formatos de varejo de alimentos existentes no Brasil e as suas características. A análise empírica identifica o perfil dos consumidores que freqüentam um ou mais formatos de varejo para a compra de alimentos em quatro regiões brasileiras. No final, a revisão bibliográfica e a análise empírica são confrontadas para encontrar as semelhanças e as diferenças entre o que é encontrado na literatura e o que realmente acontece na prática, pois acredita-se que as características do consumidor e as variáveis ambientais citadas na revisão bibliográfica devem refletir de alguma forma o perfil do consumidor identificado na pesquisa empírica. Ressalta-se que, pelo fato da pesquisa de campo abranger quatro regiões brasileiras, o resultado em alguma região pode ser diferente do encontrado na literatura por causa de especificidades regionais (de características do consumidor ou de variáveis ambientais). Por fim, a elaboração de sugestões e recomendações às empresas varejistas é feita a partir da junção das duas bases da dissertação, da revisão teórica e do perfil do consumidor revelado pela pesquisa.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:53:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AnisiaKLG.pdf: 403985 bytes, checksum: 40bf1dc865ca113d8092cdcad601a595 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-05-19 / Demand for organic foods in the Brazil are growing year last, characterizing itself for if constituting in a new strategical segment of commercialization. In this context, the objective of this research was to investigate the factor that influence the interest of the consumers in the purchase decision of organic products, aiming to characterize the level of competitiveness of these products, assisting in the creation of environmental strategies for the development of the activity and contributing in the increment of the knowledge about the subject, that can assist it in the increase of the commercialization and the consumption of these foods. From data collected in the city of Manaus/AM, it was used a survey research, of exploratory and descriptive character. The sample was obtained using 421 questionnaires, in which was realized the descriptive analysis, analysis of groupings and association analysis among variables using the test qui-square. The results found in this study indicate that the majority the of consumers of supermarkets of the Manaus/AM never to purchase organic foods. Generally the consumers to have few or some knowledge about these foods, however, the level of the interest in to obtain information about the subject is high.The barriers mains in the purchase of organic products are the label fault in the product and the quality no certificate in the product. Among the profile characteristics, the variables income and level scholar are associate to interest level in the obtain information about the subject / A procura por alimentos org?nicos no Brasil vem crescendo nos ?ltimos anos, constituindo-se num novo segmento estrat?gico de comercializa??o. Nesse contexto, o objetivo desta pesquisa foi investigar os fatores que influenciam o interesse dos consumidores na decis?o de compra de produtos org?nicos, visando caracterizar o n?vel de competitividade desses produtos, auxiliando na cria??o de estrat?gias ambientais para o desenvolvimento da atividade e contribuindo para o incremento do conhecimento sobre o assunto que possa vir a auxiliar no aumento da comercializa??o e no consumo desses alimentos. A partir de dados coletados na cidade de Manaus/AM, utilizou-se uma metodologia de pesquisa do tipo survey , de car?ter explorat?rio e descritivo. A amostra foi obtida atrav?s de 421 question?rios, nos quais foram realizados An?lises Descritivas, An?lises de Agrupamento e de Depend?ncia entre vari?veis. Os resultados encontrados neste estudo indicam que a maioria dos consumidores de supermercados de manaus nunca compram produtos org?nicos. De modo geral os consumidores possuem pouco ou algum conhecimento sobre esses produtos, por?m o n?vel de interesse em obter informa??es sobre o assunto ? alto. As principais barreiras para compra de produtos org?nicos s?o a falta de rotulagem no produto e a qualidade n?o atestada do produto. Dentre as caracter?sticas de perfil, as vari?veis renda e escolaridade est?o associadas ao n?vel de interesse em obter informa??es sobre o assunto

O presente estudo tem como objetivo identificar os papéis na compra de interruptores de luz por clientes finais e identificar as influências desses papéis e como ocorrem. O método utilizado foi dividido em duas fases, a primeira com abordagem qualitativa e a segunda com abordagem quantitativa. Inicialmente foram feitas entrevistas em profundidade com consumidores e profissionais da área, com o objetivo de identificar quais os tipos de papéis que ocorrem durante a compra de interruptores e identificar os influenciadores. O segundo passo foi uma survey, sendo entrevistadas 1.013 pessoas divididas nas cinco regiões do país, Região Centro Oeste, Nordeste, Sul, Norte e Sudeste. Foram identificados cinco papéis de compra e sete influenciadores desse processo. Os resultados da pesquisa quantitativa foram analisados com análises univariadas e multivariadas. As análises indicam que os compradores adquirem interruptores para outros usuários, mas a grande maioria deles adquirem o produto para uso próprio e são responsáveis pela compra e pelo pagamento do produto. Os resultados também indicam que as pessoas próximas são os maiores influenciadores. Espera-se que com os resultados obtidos esse trabalho possa contribuir para executivos e empresas do setor elétrico na tomada de decisões. / The present paper has the objective to identify which are the final consumers purchase roles of light switches and identify the influences about this roles and how it occurs. The analysis method was dividing in two steps, the first with a qualitative approach and the second with a quantitative approach. First of all, had been made depth interviews with consumers and professionals from the area, with the objective to identify the influencers. After that, a survey has been made, 1.013 people were interviewed and divided at five regions of the country, Midwest region, Northeast, South, North and Southeast. Were identified five purchase roles and seven influencers of this process. The quantitative research results were analyzed with univariate and multivariate analysis. The analysis indicate that the buyers also buy the light switches for other users, but the majority buy the product for own use and is responsible for the purchase and the product payment. The results also indicate that, in general, close people are the major influencers. With the obtained results throw crossing and the performed analyses, the expectations with this paper is contribute with executives and companies of the area on theirs decision-making.