Establishing predictive relationships between price and select product, market, and consumer related dimensions: an investigation within indian consumer electronics market

• Published in: Opsearch Vol. 55; no. 2; pp. 361 - 380
• Main Author: Goswami, Mohit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.06.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Business and Management; Commonality; Consumer behavior; Consumer electronics; Decision analysis; Electronics; Empirical analysis; End users; Management; Market segments; Mathematics; Operations research; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Prices; Pricing; Ratings; Regression analysis; Smartphones; Statistical analysis; Studies; Theoretical Article; Variance analysis; India; Consumer behavior; Consumer reviews; Decision analysis; Price; Product distinctiveness
• ISSN: 0030-3887; 0975-0320
• DOI: 10.1007/s12597-017-0327-4

This research intends to empirically examine within the ambit of Indian consumer electronics market the relationship between product prices and select product, market, and consumer related facets. Product distinctiveness (function of product commonality), consumer choice probabilities and numeral ratings of consumer reviews associated with product offerings within a market segment are considered the representative elements of product, market and consumer related dimensions respectively in this research. Initially, employing the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) technique, the test for statistical equality of product offering’s (of key market players) prices within a market segment is carried out. Thereafter, employing the multi linear regression (MLR) technique, the empirical relationships between product pricing and product distinctiveness, consumer choice, and consumer ratings are established. The devised research framework is demonstrated for the smartphone product offerings listed at the website of India’s leading e-retailer ( Flipkart ) in the price band of Rs. 5000–10,000. Our analysis reveals several key managerial insights. An important insight that results from our study pertains to the fact that consumer ratings provided by end users in this market segment does not seem to influence the product pricing considerably. Another noteworthy insight refers to the fact that subject to certain threshold price within this segment, the consumers really does not discriminate in purchasing product offering(s) of one manufacturer from the other.