Effect of Country of Origin of a Product on Consumers' Buying Behavior

Abstract

In this study the country of origin effect on consumer's quality perception has been examined in a three step survey. First, subjects in the study group were given with sample of consumer consumption products, three coffee brands from three countries, one from Brazil, the other from Colombia and the third one was from Ethiopia. The subjects took a cup of brewed coffee sample to taste each of them and rate them based on their quality assessment. The second step of the research survey has assessed the general perception of the subjects towards the countries of origin for the given coffee brands before subjects learn about origins of the coffee brands. In the third step of the survey, subjects made their final evaluation on the same coffee brands after learning the information of the origins of the coffee samples. Subjects in the study were from graduate class of students taken from the marketing section at Oklahoma State University. The research findings showed that consumers do perceive quality of products differently and rate products in a different order of preference before they were provided with the country of origin information cue than they did after they had been provided with the country of origin information. The results of this study have strongly indicated that the country of origin of a product plays a decisive role by creating perceptional competitive difference between products in the buying process by consumers through dominating the effects of the intrinsic cues of products.