CONSUMER ATTITUDES TOWARD DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN PRODUCTS AND MARKETING PRACTICES

Nugzar Todua1 Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Ali Riza Apil2 Assistant Professor of Marketing, Department of Business Administration, International Black Sea University

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Researchers generally have a consensus on the consumers’ evaluation of the products of different countries differently in terms of attitudes and purchase intentions (Han, 1989; Erickson et al., 1984; Han and Terpstra, 1988; Johansson et al., 1985; Kaynak and Cavusgil, 1983). In this study, we research how consumers evaluate product attributes of different countries. Fifteen product attributes of five selected countries studied. Consumers’ perception of the attributes of five countries’ products were determined in means and depicted in Table 1. The mean response rate of consumers evaluations of product attributes of the products of five countries were plotted in Figure 1 for visual interpretation. For a clearer perspective, the data in Table 1 are ranked by their means for each attribute and shown in Table 2.
Of the five countries included in this survey, Germany emerged as clearly having the most favorable ratings on most attributes like technical superiority, reliability, workmanship, material quality, and popularity. Respondents rated American products almost equal to German products. USA shared the first place with Germany in the product attributes; brand familiarity, wideness of choice and models, advertisement quality, however having more advertisements than Germany. Domestic products received a significantly higher rating on several attributes. Georgia was the first in ranking concerning product attributes; reasonable prices, and most purchased products, and second in adaptability to Georgian preferences. Domestic products were rated in the third place in brand familiarity, advertisement quality, and recommended products.
When we compare the product dimensions among each others we observe that Georgian consumers mostly appreciate reasonable prices of domestic products and suitability of domestic products to Georgian tastes and preferences. They normally buy a lot and recommend to others for consumption. They are satisfied with workmanship of domestic products even though they were relatively got lower rating in comparison to products of developed countries and familiar with national brands. They consider that domestic products are advertised relatively less than foreign products, but they consider that advertisements for domestic products are having satisfactory quality. Georgian consumers rekon that domestic products in general tecnnically inferior and having unattractive designs. Domestic products are also considered to be made of poor material and to have limited choice of size and models(See Table 2).
Having the roots in historical backgrounds, Russia was rated in the first place in most purchased products. Russia was the second in ranking concerning product attributes, reasonable prices, brand familiarity, advertisement quality, and adaptability to Georgian preferences. Russia was the third in ranking concerning product attributes; technical superiority, reliability, workmanship, innovation, material quality, design attractiveness, prestige, having more advertisements, and recommended products. Though Turkey was rated in the first place in reasonable price, and in the second place in most purchased products, Georgian consumers assigned lower ratings to Turkish products relative to all other imported products on nearly all attributes. Turkey was the third in ranking concerning product attributes, wideness of choice and models, advertisement quality, and having more advertisements. The above is summarized in Table 2.
As to most product attributes, German products received the highest ranking followed by USA. These attributes; technical superiority, reliability, workmanship, innovation, material quality, brand familiarity and popularity, wideness of choice and models, design attractiveness, prestige, quality advertisements, and most recommended products. Russia followed Germany and USA in brand familiarity and popularity, wideness of choice and models, quality advertisement, and most recommended products. As to reasonable prices, Turkish, Georgian and Russian products are considered highly favorable by the consumers compared to products from Germany and USA. German, Russian, and Georgian products are mostly purchased products. As to adaptability to Georgian consumer preferences, German, Georgian and Russian products are favored. The above is summarized in Table 1 and 2. The results of product attribute – technical superiority and workmanship – Germany and USA supports past findings that consumers’ recognition of technical superiority and workmanship of developed countries products. The results of product attribute – reasonable price – support the idea that consumers prefer developing countries’ products for their reasonable prices.
To be an indicator of the competitiveness of Georgia products in Table 3, stronger product attributes are compared to other developing countries in the survey Turkey and Russia. Reasonable prices of Georgian and Turkish products are more significantly observed to be competitive. Georgian and Russian product are reported as most purchased products and as suitable to Georgian taste and preferences.

Reliability Analysis
Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was used in this study to assess the reliability of the measures. Nunnally (1976) suggests a reliability coefficient of 0.60 or larger as a basis for acceptance of the measure. A Cronbach alpha coefficient of 1 would indicate perfect uni-dimensionality within a scale. When Cronbach alpha was computed for all the fifteen items of the scale for five countries this was found to be 0.902. This indicated the possibility that the entire scale was uni-dimensional. Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.902 can be considered a reasonably high reliability coefficient. Based on this, it can be concluded that all 15 product attributes toward selected countries used are measuring the attitudes of Georgian consumers toward products of these countries (See Table 4).
Consumers’ quality ratings of attributes for products sourced from Germany exhibited the highest reliability (0.902). Even though consumers’ quality ratings of attributes for products sourced from USA exhibited the lowest reliability (0.808), it is over the limit suggested by Nunnally (1976) for the acceptance of measure.
The Impact of Demographics
on Attitude toward Foreign Products
While perceptions, in general, were observed to vary across countries and product categories, it is also useful to know if there are any identifiable consumer segments that have more positive or negative perceptions than others. Such information could be used in targeting marketing programs and strategies to specific consumers. To test if gender, marital status, age, education and income level play a discriminating role on attitude toward foreign products, Wilcoxon – Mann Whitney-tests was performed. Respondents were separated according to their age groups. First classification of two age groups – younger than 35 and older than 35. Then, the younger group divided into two parts as – younger than 24 and 24 and above up to 35. Another interesting issue is whether there is a difference between consumers that are more educated and those with less education as regards the country-of-origin effect. To test this, the education category was recorded into two separate categories – the first category includes those respondents with high school education, while the second category includes those with higher education, i.e. university and above. Table 5 summarizes the results regarding the impact of gender, income, education, marital status, and ethnocentrism.
Gender produced a significant main effect on domestic product attributes. With respect to Georgian products, male respondents show significant positive attitudes with regard to four attributes, namely, “inventive/imitation”, “Having them is not prestigious/ Prestigious to have them”, “Have little advertising/ Have much advertising”, and “I normally buy very little this country’s products/ I normally buy a lot of this country’s products”. Education did not produce any significant differentiation effect on any product attribute. Age produced a significant main effect for only one product attribute. Older respondents rated significantly higher the attribute “familiar brand names”.
Respondents were split into four groups based on their self-reported annual personal income level. Income produced a relatively less significant main effect in comparison to other factors. While lower income respondents rated relatively higher the attribute “familiar brand names” and the attribute “reliable and lasts longer” respect to domestic products. Marital status produced relatively more significant main effect on product attributes. With respect to Georgian products, married respondents rated significantly higher regard to three product attributes, “technically superior”, “reasonable prices”, and “quality advertisements”.
Shimp and Sharma’s (1987) CETSCALE was used to determine the ethnocentrism level of Georgian consumers (See Apil, 2008; Todua and Apil, 2008). First, respondents were split into two halves according to their ethnocentrism level in the bases of mean scores. Then, respondents were put into four quartiles in order to observe the perception differences of the ethnocentric and non-ethnocentric respondents. Consumer ethnocentrism produced a significant main effect on product attitudes of eleven product attributes. Ethnocentric respondents rated significantly higher eleven of fifteen attributes, namely, “technically superior”, “reliable and lasts longer”, “good workmanship”, “inventive”, “made of good material”, “attractive design and style”, “prestigious to have them”, “reasonable prices”, “I normally buy a lot of this country’s products”, “suit Georgian preferences”, and “I would recommend to others”.
This research found gender and ethnocentrism in some extend marital status to be marginal moderator variables on the consumer attitudes toward attributes of products made in Georgia.

CONCLUSIONS AND MARKETING IMPLICATIONS

The present study contributes to consumer research by providing information about consumer attitudes in a less researched geography. The present study proves that consumers see products sourced from developed countries as production of superior technology, better workmanship, and better material and also innovative and reliable. On the other hand, lower prices of developing countries products are appreciated for their lower process. As to reasonable prices, Turkish and Georgian products are considered highly favorable. These results are consistent with similar previous studies (Han and Terpstra, 1988; Elliott and Cameron, 1994; Badri et al., 1995; Buhian, 1997; Kaynak and Kucukemiroglu, 2001; Leonidou et al, 1999; Sohail, 2005).
Demographics of consumers affect their product attributes, but to make generalizations significant differences are not enough. Some interesting findings appear. It seems partial demographic differences exist. Male, married and ethnocentric consumers have more favorable attitude for Georgian product attributes.
When we compare the product dimensions among each others we observe that Georgian consumers mostly appreciate reasonable prices of domestic products and suitability of domestic products to Georgian tastes and preferences. They normally buy a lot and recommend to others for consumption. Thus, emphasizing reasonable prices and their suitability to Georgian tastes and preferences can be a successful strategy for promoting domestic products. They consider that domestic products advertised relatively less than foreign products but they consider that advertisements for domestic products are having satisfactory quality and moderate brand familarity. Increasing the te amount and quality of advertisments of domestic products can incrase band familiarity and recognition.
They are satisfied with workmanship of domestic products even though they were relatively got lower rating in comparison to products of developed countries and familiar with national brands. Georgian consumers rekon that domestic products in general are tecnnically inferior and have unattractive designs. Domestic products are also considered to be made of poor material and to have limited choice of size and models. This results imply that increasing qulity of production, materials, and workmanship, variety of size and models requires more attention for success in Georgian market.
The image of domestic products in Georgia is expected to tend better off. Parallel to the increasing competition, domestic firms increase the quality of products in the Georgian market. Reconstruction and industrial development continues in major sectors like winery and construction. The need to find new international markets to major Georgian products like Georgian wine and the competition they meet in international markets force Georgian firms to improve the quality, variety and product attractiveness.
One of the fact that Georgian consumers rely primarily on experiential knowledge in assessing products implies that managers should adapt their marketing strategies, not only to give the consumer the opportunity to experiment with their products through give-away, eye-catching displays, and free trials, but at the same time to form the best possible image of their products. Moreover, the heavy reliance on the opinion of friends as product information sources necessitates the identification of opinion leaders in Georgian society who will be the target of suitable communication strategies stressing the positive aspects of products. Power of word of mouth communication can accelerate product adoption and the experience of first users of the products will be communicated faster toward majority consumers. Further, despite its moderate impact as an information outlet, the role of television should not be underestimated, since it is gaining momentum as a communication medium in Georgia (Apil et al., 2008).
The study provide better understanding of the characteristics of the demand for the consumers and will enable marketers to design appropriate marketing mix strategies that will help them target the existing and future consumers and position their products in Georgian market. It will be necessary to create an appropriate promotional mix to address these issues effectively and efficiently.
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