Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1995

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Human Ecology

Major Professor

Carl L. Dyer

Committee Members

Robert Maddox, Frank David, Randall Bresee

Abstract

Value is a much used word today to emphasize what retailers think consumers want. The challenge in looking at value is to determine what it means. Much has been written and spoken about delivering value to consumers, but what exactly does it mean? Herein lies the confusion. The research presents an empirical approach to assess what consumers value in terms of their user experience with products they have purchased and used. Bundled with this assessment is the retailer. Most research to date has approached value in terms of likelihood of purchase or in the actual purchase situation, but not from the actual purchase and use of the product. There is no research to date that has taken this approach. An empirical model was developed to assess user experience based on product situation context, department, specialty, or discount retailer chosen to shop, user experience, and importance attributes.

The research focused on users of the product categories (leisure, business, special occasion), non-users of the three product categories, comparing users to non-users, and male and female users of the products. Retailers investigated for chosen products were department, specialty, and discount stores. Results indicate that there are significant differences for the three product categories and constructs. There are overall significant attribute importance differences as well as individual attribute importance differences based on users, non-users, males and females, based on product category, user experience, and functional and emotional/aesthetic constructs.

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