For Research : Perception of Prices

Not only country of origin influencing on the consumers’ purchasing intention, marketing including prices has also played an important role in consumers’ product evaluation. In the COO effects research field, researchers have linked the other marketing variables to the effect of country of origin. Chai, et al. (2004) conducted the research on country of origin effect (made in label) and price influence on consumers’ willingness to buy foreign products. In addition, they concluded that with three points: (1) COO effect was very important in a multiple-attribute scenario, which indicated that consumers raised their willingness to buy the imported products according to the degree of the development of the producing country. (2) Even consumer always considered made in label as a very important factor but they still took price—another influenced factor—into account before making purchasing decision. Consumers would increase their willingness to buy the products from a less developed country if the price of its product decreased, while the prices of the imported product from developed country remain the same. And Highly Ethno centrism, Highly Domestic Product Preference. And (3) the price elastic of the durable goods from less developed country was lower than non-durable goods from the same country.

Empirical and experimental studies indicated that a negative of country of origin could be offset by a prestigious brand name, e.g., everyone learn that Sony is a strong brand of product from Japan, although a Sony product made in Hong Kong but it is still be a Sony even its image is somewhat lower (Tse & Lee, 1989; Ahmed, d’Astous & Zouiten, 1993; Ahmed & d’Astous, 1995). Yet, Chéron and Propeck (1997) suggested that although a negative COO can be offset by a strong brand name, however, consumer would expect a lower price. When the product evaluation is concerned without price expectation involved, the moderating role played by brand name shown in Figure 2.2. Cai, et al. (2004) also addressed that when the price of product decreases, consumers will demonstrated their preference to buy the product even they have a bias against the product’s country of origin. In contrast, Heslop, et al. (1987) found that a good brand image and pricing strategy can not improve a negative of country of origin.