ABSTRACT

Determining the appropriate price for store brands relative to national brands is important. When setting the price, consumers’ perceptions of price and quality need to be considered. Two past approaches employed by store brand researchers to reveal consumers’ value of store brands include asking either: (1) the price discount they would need to be offered to switch from a national brand to a store brand (a measure of “willingness-to-accept”); or (2) the price premium they would be willing to pay to switch from a store brand to a national brand (a measure of “willingness-to-pay”). Research in other domains reveals that willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates can diverge. We formally tested whether WTA estimates differ from WTP estimates elicited from consumers with respect to store and national brand prices. As predicted, WTA price estimates exceeded those of WTP. This pattern held regardless of whether product-quality equivalence of store and national brands was explicitly provided to respondents or whether respondents were free to make their own assumptions of product quality. Implications for private label researchers and product brand managers are discussed.

摘要

确定商店品牌相对于民族品牌的合适价格很重要。在制定价格时，需要考虑消费者对价格和质量的看法。商店品牌研究人员过去采用的两种方法来揭示消费者对商店品牌的价值，包括询问：(1) 从全国性品牌转换为商店品牌所需的价格折扣（衡量“愿意购买商店品牌”的程度） -接受”）; 或 (2) 他们愿意为从商店品牌转向全国品牌而支付的价格溢价（“支付意愿”的衡量标准）。其他领域的研究表明，愿意接受 (WTA) 和愿意支付 (WTP) 的估计可能会有所不同。我们正式测试了 WTA 估计是否与消费者在商店和国家品牌价格方面得出的 WTP 估计不同。正如预测的那样，WTA 的价格估计超过了 WTP。无论商店和国家品牌的产品质量等效是否明确提供给受访者，或者受访者是否可以自由地对产品质量做出自己的假设，这种模式都成立。讨论了对自有品牌研究人员和产品品牌经理的影响。