Analysis of urban consumer preferences for honey in the context of a transition economy – A case study for Albania

Summary This paper aims to analyze urban consumer preferences for Albanian honey, focusing on key product attributes such as origin, type, location and price, using a conjoint choice experiment and latent class approach. Origin and location-landscape were found to be the most important factors for most surveyed consumers. Albanian consumers prefer honey produced in mountainous forests and on pastures. Moreover, multi-flower honey is preferred compared to chestnuts honey. These results can be used to producers’ advantage when local branding and well-perceived certification (e.g., producer associations’ brands) would be applied in order to increase the consumer awareness and strengthen the intrinsic features of the product especially for small producers. Labeling should be clear and emphasize the origin as well as the natural landscape where beehives are kept. Furthermore, in its regionalization economic development policy, the government may consider supporting honey produced from the mountainous areas.

Assessing consumer preferences and willingness to pay for organic tomatoes in Albania: a conjoint choice experiment study

Albania has potential for developing the organic agriculture sector; however, it is a new industry and constraints abound including lack of consumer preferences information for organic food. Knowledge on consumer preferences and behaviour toward organic (bio) products is crucial for market development benefiting potential entrepreneurs and government policies. They need to know the preference for preferred product attributes and willingness to pay. Tomato, which is the most important vegetable in terms of consumption and production in Albania, is the subject of this study. A conjoint choice experiment with the most important product attributes: production type (bio vs. conventional), production system (open field vs. greenhouse), origin and price were used to design the choice surveys. Four distinct classes have been identified as significant using latent class analysis. The classes are summarized as: bio-ready consumers, price sensitive consumers, variety seeking consumers and quality seeking consumers. Origin played a small influence on preference. Education and income did show some influence on preference for organic tomatoes. Although the organic food market in Albania is in its infancy stage, organic tomatoes are clearly preferred and many consumers are willing to pay a premium price.

Category-Based Screening in Choice of Complementary Products

Consumers often make complex choices involving complementary categories, such as cell phones and service plans. In the fast-growing high-tech and entertainment industries, products from complementary categories are often incompatible with one another. This research shows that when choosing a pair of such complementary products, a consumer is likely to use a two-stage decision strategy: screening by one category first to narrow down the number of pairs for further evaluation in the second stage. In the presence of incompatibility, screening by one category rather than by the other may lead to different choice outcomes. The authors develop a behavioral theory–driven choice model that accounts for both preference heterogeneity and structural heterogeneity of decision strategies to examine the extent to which consumers engage in category-based screening. Analysis of data from a 2 × 2 conjoint choice experiment reveals that consumers tend to screen a category that has higher intracategory differentiation and is congruent with their decision goals. The authors further suggest possible marketing actions a firm can take to promote the use of a specific decision strategy that leads consumers to choose its product.