Determinants of Price Dependency: Personal and Perceptual Factors", The

Using a conjoint measurement approach to elicit part-worths of five different quality cues (including price), this study shows that reliance on price for productlbrand quality varies across subgroups. It was found that extent of cue utilization depends on an individual's perception of the product quality concept. Price was used pri-marily to assist in predicting the economic performance of a productlbrand. B eing almost universally available and relatively easy to comprehend, price has become in many cases an extensively used cue for predicting product/brand qUality. The nature of the relationship between the price of a prod-uctlbrand and its perceived quality has been explored by several marketing scholars (Gardner 1977; Olson 1976). Most researchers have found that price is often utilized by consumers in evaluating quality of products and brands. Several authors have also found that differences in con-sumer characteristics affect the extent of consumers ' reli-ance on price (Andrews and Valenzi 1970; Enis and Staf