Country of origin effect on Russian consumers: Evaluation of label "Made in Italy"

Abstract

The goal of the thesis was to analyze how Russian consumers evaluate products “made in” Italy, their willingness to buy these products and associations with demographical and individual characteristics. Also the additional analysis was made regarding the perceived price of particular Italian product categories and sources of information about Italian products where Russian consumers get information from. Main results are that Italian product image is positive among Russian consumers, where design has highest evaluation, followed by prestige and quality. Innovativeness, in turn, received a below-average evaluation. Demographic characteristics such as gender, age, income do not have any significant associations with evaluation of dimensions of Italian products, except evaluation of innovativeness. Individual characteristic (travelling to Italy) has association only with evaluation of prestige. Regarding purchase intensions, demographic characteristics are not associated with them. As for travelling to Italy, more people are travelling, higher is their willingness to buy Italian products. The results regarding the perceived price (perceived value) have shown that everything depends on the product category: furniture is perceived as of high price whilst prices for shoes and wine correspond to the value of these product categories. Finally, it was found out that the sources of information that are used most frequently are own experience and peers’ opinions.