Higher price means higher quality in consumers Study. For products to be marketed to the places where people tend to have a more local identity (such as rural areas), local flavors and ingredients can be used in the products.Washington: Why are we willing to pay much more for a six-pack of craft beer, a locally produced bottle of wine or a regional brand item, often choosing them over national brands? It's because when people prefer to 'buy local,' they more frequently base their decisions on price as a perception of quality, research shows."Consumers tend to use price to judge a product's quality when their local identity is most important to them. When promoting high-priced or branded products, marketers can situationally activate consumers' local identity.
To accomplish this objective, businesses can encourage consumers to 'think local' or employ local cultural symbols in advertising and other promotional material," said associate professor Ashok Lalwani.The researchers also suggested that the opposite was o-ring true for low-price products."Discount stores, such as dollar stores, should discourage consumers from using the price of a product to infer its quality. They would be better served by temporarily making consumers' global identity more prominent. Cues in advertisements that focus on a product's global appeal would help achieve that goal," Lalwani said.Many companies find it difficult to set and increase prices in the digital marketplace because of the pricing transparency of the internet, consumers' deal-seeking attitudes and global product availability.
