Dual quality and its influence on consumer behaviour according to the income

Abstract

Research background: Dual quality occurred in natural way after fall of Communism. Global producers from Western countries had to adapt formulas and composition of their products to living standards in countries of former soviet bloc. Purpose of the article: But present situation is different, living standards equalize, people travel, they purposely buy abroad, and they discover that international goods known from home shops have different attributes – composition, colour, aroma or density of product – in the same or very similar package in foreign countries. In Slovak Republic, there was missing a research of consumers´ opinions in context of dual quality as global problem. Methods: We conducted such research by questionnaire method on the sample of 987 Slovak respondents. Because dual quality is connected to many goods and besides different attributes also price is different many times, we were interested how is this problem perceived by consumers with different income. We divided respondents in our research into three groups according to the monthly income of household: low, middle and high income. Findings & Value added: According to the results, consumers with high income perceive problem of dual quality more, they are more interested to be informed about this problem and they are also more willing to share their own experiences with dual quality. On the other side, consumers with low income more changed their consumer behaviour due to information about dual quality. This article brings results of unique research and brings proposals for improving of the situation about dual quality in Slovakia with respect to incomes of consumers.

Keywords

• dual quality
• consumer behaviour
• social class
• income