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The Research of Direct-Selling Consumer's Perceived Risk and Risk Reduction Strategy

This study takes ¡§the Health food of nutrition¡¨, ¡§Cosmetic skin care products¡¨, and ¡§the Articles for cleanness¡¨ as the representatives of direct-selling products. With the network questionnaires to investigate ¡§Consumer characteristics¡¨ of ¡§Netizens¡¨, and how they influence the levels of various perceived risk, and the helpfulness of risk reduction strategies, with SEM to analysis the structure between seven kinds of perceived risk, with the method which was used by Roselius (1971) to measure the helpfulness of risk reduction strategies, and with Cluster, Correlate, ANOVA to analysis the way how ¡§Consumer characteristics¡¨ of ¡§Netizens¡¨ influence perceived risks and risk reduction strategies, and the way how perceived risks influence risk reduction strategies.
There are five important conclusions, describing as following:
1. There are differences between three kinds of direct-selling products on the perceived risks of ¡§Performance¡¨, ¡§Psychology¡¨, and ¡§Overall¡¨.
2. In the structure of constructing the path to form the ¡§Overall risk¡¨ by six kinds of risks, the direct and indirect result exists at the same time.
3. Different ¡§Consumer characteristics¡¨ will influence different kinds of perceived risks, and the most meaningful characteristics are ¡§the Types of direct-selling consumers¡¨ and ¡§the attitude toward shopping through direct-selling¡¨.
4. Different ¡§Consumer characteristics¡¨ will influence the helpfulness of different risk reduction strategies, and the most meaningful characteristics are ¡§Age¡¨, ¡§Location¡¨, and ¡§the Types of direct-selling consumers¡¨.
5. Various perceived risks will influence the helpfulness of different risk reduction strategies, and only the helpfulness of ¡§Free sample¡¨ will be enhanced.
There are three points about managerial implications and suggestions, describing as following:
1. ¡§Private testing¡¨, ¡§Government testing¡¨, and ¡§Major brand image¡¨ are capable of reducing the ¡§Performance risk¡¨ effectively, and then reduce the levels of ¡§Overall risk¡¨ perception to decrease the perceived sacrifice of product value and to enhance it to the original levels of product value.
2. For the ¡§Netizen¡¨ who are not becoming a member, and not using direct-selling products quite often, ¡§Free sample¡¨ with ¡§Replace product guarantee¡¨ or ¡§Money-back guarantee¡¨ are capable of reducing the levels of risk perception effectively.
3. In the long run, direct-selling companies should endeavor to prove the image of direct-selling, because ¡§the attitude toward shopping through direct-selling¡¨ is an important factor to influence the levels of risk perception and the helpfulness of the risk reduction strategies. And ¡§Industry autonomy¡¨ is a good risk reduction strategy, but not be known by the public. There is a long way for TDSA ¡]Taiwan Direct Selling Association¡^ to go, because popularity and public trust are insufficient.
Key words: Consumer characteristics, Perceived risk, Risk reduction strategy

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0730108-161036
Date30 July 2008
CreatorsTsai, Chao-yu
ContributorsMing-rea Kao, Chi-cheng Wu, H. Jason Huang, Der-Fa Robert Chen
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0730108-161036
Rightsnot_available, Copyright information available at source archive

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