The dissertation is a methodological exploration of the relevance of in-store behavioural experiments with relative sales and matching analysis to study consumers' brand choices in real open settings. Three extensive in-store experiments, using alternating treatment design with baseline—testing the effects of Place, Price, and Promotion—were performed in different types of stores (convenience, supermarkets, and budget) in order to investigate the application of the consumer behaviour analysis research framework to real open consumer settings. Four choice-based behaviour analytical analyses—relative sales analysis, amount matching, cost matching and probability matching—were performed on the data when applicable. The results show that the relative sales analyses for the in-store experiments often show orderliness and functionally interesting, and in some cases contradicting, buying behaviour patterns. As for previous correlational consumer behaviour analysis research there is—as should be expected—strong relationship between relative spending and relative buying (amount matching). Although methodologically peculiar, the application of this compelled matching relationship lies in the ability of the free parameters of the generalised matching equation to indicate dimensions of the substitutability of brands to some degree. Cost matching analyses, generally, did not show downward sloping curves, as is sometimes the case in previous studies. It, as well as amount matching, hides functional relations but can be appropriate if represented with a relative sales analysis, which gives clearer picture of behaviour-environment relationships than matching analysis. Results also show that the probability matching analysis, as applied in consumer behaviour analysis, gives misleading results. The ingathering of the study is a new in-store behavioural experimental project which can appraise consumer behaviour analytical advantages, fallacies, and verification seen with the lenses of in-store experimental techniques, and the inclusion of relative sales analysis to real and affluent consumer settings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:584255 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Sigurdsson, Vladimar |
| Publisher | Cardiff University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54337/ |
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