Consumers Evaluation Criteria

1. Introduction

Nowadays when going shoe shopping, you often find last season's shoes still on the rack with a 50% sale tag on it and not enough new shoes. The main reason of this problem is because retailers do not know what consumers look for in a shoe, in other words what shoes consumers are looking for, because retailers do not know how consumers evaluate product attributes.

Consumers have an evaluation criterion when deciding on purchasing a shoe, it is important and necessary for retailers to know and understand which product attributes in this case of a shoe weighs more and is more important for the consumer. It also goes to say that evaluation criteria often vary by demographics "Age and Gender" but for this research we thought it would also be interesting and useful to use Culture as an aspect as well, because Aruba is a multi-cultural island.

The purpose of this research is to find an answer to this problem, so that retailers can promote and market their products in this case shoes, better. This research will also help retailers buy new shoes for its consumers' bearing in mind the product attributes that weigh the most and are the most important in the eyes of the consumers.

2.Background

We have chosen the demographics "age and gender" because previous research revealed that individual consumer characteristics influence their shopping behaviors. Among consumer characteristics, age and gender, in particular, have been identified as important elements in shaping consumers' shopping behavior (Rabolt and Drake, 1984/1985; Solomon, 2007). Thus man and women have a different mindset when shopping and deciding on purchasing a product, in this case shoes. It is also possible that for example the product attribute "Style" of a shoe is more important for a 21 year old female, than a 50 year old woman.

By conducting this research, we will be more aware if in fact product attributes vary by age and gender, and also to which degree. Dias (2003) also suggests that different age groups have different attitudes toward shopping and these varying attitudes influence their motivations for purchasing consumer goods. We have reason to believe that we have enough facts from previous researches that there is a difference in evaluating a product (shoe) by the characteristic age and gender. With this research we will find out how big of a role does "age and gender" play when evaluating product attributes of a shoe.

We also wanted to research if culture had a role to play when evaluating product attributes of a shoe, because according to Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard (1995), "[c]ulture affects the specific products people buy as well as the structure of consumption, individual decision making, and communication in a society" (p. 615). But what exactly is culture and how do you define it?

Culture is defined as the "collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from those of another" (Hofstede, 1991, P.5). In this research we will not really use the