Correlates of Price Acceptability of Apparel Products

의류상품 소비에 있어서 가격수용성의 상호관련변수

The main focus of the study resides in antecedents of price acceptability. Levels of acceptable price may be related to the consumers' perception on reasonable or expected price. Price acceptability is known to have several psychological antecedents. One of the antecedents to price acceptability reported by prior researches is price-quality inference, a tendency to correlate high price to excellence in quality. In addition, price-conscious consumers are likely to show lower level of price acceptability level. Another well-known antecedent is sale proneness. Sales-prone consumers may relate price of apparel products to product quality information. Moreover, it was reported that involved consumers should be more concerned with the products to its price and thus should have higher levels of price acceptability. A conceptual model with price consciousness, sale proneness and product involvement as the exogenous variable, price-quality inference and price acceptability as the endogenous variable was developed for the empirical study. Measures of research variables were developed based on previous studies. Questionuaires from 298 respondents were analyzed for the study. The average age of respondents was 27. About 60% of the respondents were married and about 65% of them had college degrees. Empirical results supported all of the hypothesized relationships. Price consciousness had significant negative influence on price-quality inference and price acceptability. Sale proneness significantly influenced price-quality inference, while apparel involvement had significant impact on price-quality inference and price acceptability. Price-quality affected price acceptability significantly. This study generated a framework to help scholars understand antecedents of price acceptability of apparel products. Price has been shown to playa dual role in consumer's perceptions, either positively or negatively. Price consciousness played a negative role, and product involvement had a positive role in evoking higher level of price acceptability. This study also suggests additional source of positive, yet indirect role of price, sale proneness. This study also affirmed the importance of price-quality inference in arousing higher level of price acceptability.