An emerging consensus in marketing is that consumers respond to price relative to some standard or reference price. Most researchers modeling brand choice have reasoned that this standard is based on past prices of the brand. The authors argue that consumers do use reference prices, but one that is also based on context—other prices in the store—rather than on past prices alone. An analysis of households’ brand choices in two subcategories and over three cities supports this premise. Within context, the lowest price seems to be an important cue for reference price, whereas within time, a brand's own past prices seem to be the most important cue. Households’ use of a contextual reference price also varies predictably across some consumer characteristics. Though their model can be applied to other categories, the findings have important managerial implications: Managerial focus on temporal reference prices could lead to an everyday high price, whereas focus on contextual reference prices could lead to an everyday low price. Only the inclusion of both contextual and temporal reference prices justifies variable pricing.

Consumers' knowledge of a product's country of origin is widely regarded as an important influence on their choice behaviour (e.g. Bilkey and Nes, 1982). Substantial country-of-origin (CO) research has shown a tendency for consumers to prefer their own country's products (Hong and Wyer, 1989). For example, over two-thirds of Spanish and British subjects preferred domesticmade products to comparable foreign-made products (Peris et al., 1993). In another study, French and West German consumers exhibited nationalistic sentiments as they rated their own country's products higher than those from Japan (Papadopoulos et al., 1990).The tendency for consumers to prefer domestic to foreign goods has been labelled as consumer nationalism in the CO literature. Nationalistic consumers perceive that purchasing imported products is wrong because it hurts the domestic economy, causes loss of jobs and is unpatriotic. In studying such consumers, Shimp and Sharma (1987) found that consumer nationalism is negatively correlated with purchase of foreign products. Highly nationalistic consumers were inclined to emphasize the positive aspects of domestic products and to discount the virtues of foreign-made items.However, not all products in the marketplace are produced domestically, nor are all consumers nationalists. In most nations, consumers confront many purchase alternatives from which to choose (Netemeyer et al., 1991). Moreover, with growing immigration, the proliferation of adopted foreign children into many societies, the increase in multinational marriages, and the constant transformation of our world by technologies that render distances irrelevant, a new culture is being created daily within many countries (Weiner, 1994). This hybrid culture (e.g. substantial groups within Canadian or Swiss cultures) becomes increasingly appreciative of world sharing and common welfare and shows empathy and understanding towards other societies, which Sampson and Smith (1957) label as "worldmindedness".

No abstract

Country‐of‐origin research has concentrated on the examination of consumer product perceptions or attitudes towards products made in different countries based on a variety of intrinsic or extrinsic cues. This research takes a different approach by examining the impact of country of origin, levels of foreign product ownership and consumer′s occupational status on interpersonal perceptions. Since respondents were not asked to engage in direct evaluations of various products of domestic or foreign origins, consumer normative response tendencies should be minimized. This approach also allows the examination of differential effects of country of origin on different consumer segments according to the occupational status.

No abstract