tailieunhanh - The evolution of credence goods in customer markets: exchanging `pigs in pokes'

When consumers buy products like for instance food products, they make choices by comparing price and quality among alternatives|. a standard product and an animal-welfare oriented variant. The choice between product variants is influenced by the available information channels and the related uncertainty of information concerning di erent quality characteristics. For in- stance, the amount of visible fat of a pork chop wrapped in plastic can imme- diately be inspected and the taste of pork can be experienced, but the previous welfare of the dead pig is to most consumers a matter of loosely grounded be- lief. The consumer can to some extent improve his or her level of. | The evolution of credence goods in customer markets exchanging pigs in pokes Esben Sloth Andersen and Kristian Philipsen Draft revised January 10 1998 Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 Towards a theory of credence goods 4 Types of credence goods. 4 Credentials of sellers. 7 Supply of credence goods in customer markets. 8 The evolution of credence goods in customer markets. 9 3 A stylised case free-range pigs in the Netherlands 11 The product. 11 The pioneering phase. 12 The expansion phase. 13 Shifting emphasis. 14 4 Conclusions 15 Notes 16 References 17 Andersen Dept. of Business Studies Aalborg University Fibigerstr de 4 9220 Aalborg Denmark email esa@. Philipsen Southern Denmark Business School Engstien 1 6000 Kolding Denmark email kp@. Most of the research underlying the paper was connected to project no 6 of MAPP the Danish programme on Market-based Process and Product Innovation in the Food Sector. Further research has been performed within DRUID the Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the DRUID Winter Conference Middelfart January 8-10 1998. Helpful comments has been given by Bo Carlsson Jesper Lindgaard Christensen Klaus Grunert and Preben Sander Kristensen. 1 1 Introduction When consumers buy products like for instance food products they make choices by comparing price and quality among alternatives . a standard product and an animal-welfare oriented variant. The choice between product variants is influenced by the available information channels and the related uncertainty of information concerning different quality characteristics. For instance the amount of visible fat of a pork chop wrapped in plastic can immediately be inspected and the taste of pork can be experienced but the previous welfare of the dead pig is to most consumers a matter of loosely grounded belief. The consumer can to some extent improve his or her level of information by .