A consumer purchase intention and overall impression investigation
Cao Youjia, Wang Yicheng, Li Simei, Gao Junhong
Abstract In our experiments, the research sheds light on consumers’ purchase intention and overall impression towards six types of combination of chocolate package and price: 1. aesthetic package with a relatively high price, 2. aesthetic package with an intermediate price, 3. aesthetic package with a relatively low price, 4.plain package with a relatively high price, 5.plain package with an intermediate price, 6.plain package with a relatively low price. After the six between-subject experiments, we find that package design and price setting do have influence on customers’ preference to purchase, but not as strong as our perception. On the other hand, the packaging has significance influence on the customers’ overall impression towards the product. The aesthetic package with the highest price leaves the customer the best impression. Implications for future application for businesses are discussed in the final part.
Key words: Package design, price setting, analysis of variance, purchase intention.
Introduction “Man shows that he is affected by appearance, by something that causes him pleasure over and above the immediate utility of the object” (Clay, 1908). Designing aesthetic products to satisfy the consumers’ need is of growing importance in marketing. As core attributes of product, such as quality and functionality, become increasingly homogeneous (Reimann, Schilke, & Thomas, 2010), firms are shifting their efforts from concrete product characteristics towards less concrete ones such as package designing. This trend towards aesthetics in product differentiation may be based on the insight that aesthetic designs seem to trigger certain positive responses in consumers such as an immediate desire to own the product (Norman, 2004); an increased inclination to show off and care for that