How do consumers express their appreciation of wood surfaces? Norway spruce floors in Germany as an example

Key Message: A variety of visually different floor sam- ples are presented online to consumers. Based on their individual verbal judgements of appreciation for visual surface characteristics, four distinct groups of floor sur- faces were identified. This allows directing design and marketing efforts more precisely towards consumers’ expectations. Context: For high-end wood products, appearance is a key factor. Traditionally, manufacturers grade wood considering technical parameters and industrial customers’ requirements. In contrast, knowing the consumers’ verbal items would be of advantage for both producers and buyers. Aims: Three research questions are identified exploring pos- sibilities to utilize consumers’ appreciations. (1) Is it possible to establish a consistent characterization with verbal items? (2) Can appreciation be linked to visual wood properties? (3) Can the great natural variety of wood surfaces be assigned to de- sirable product groups? Methods: Out of 57 spruce logs, 810 floor boards were pro- duced and sorted into 15 ‘visual classes’ (VC). Images were retrieved and virtual floors composed from each VC. Consumers evaluated selected floor samples in an online sur- vey using a set of 7 items. Hierarchical cluster analysis and discriminant analysis are applied to analyze the answers. Results: Only 4 out of the 7 items (‘vividness’, ‘evenness’, ‘contrast’ and ‘stripes’) were sufficient to allocate the VCs to four groups which represent different consumer appreciations. Inverse assessments of different product groups support a more differentiated marketing. Conclusion: The results indicate that verbal judgements of high-end wood surfaces can hold advantages directing production and marketing efforts more towards consumers’ preferences and thus increasing satisfaction and added valueValiderad; 2016; Nivå 2; 20160608 (olof); Bibliografisk uppgift: Cite this article as Manuel, A., Leonhart, R., Broman, O. et al. Annals of Forest Science (2016) 73: 703. doi:10.1007/s13595-016-0558-1