223 RESEARCH FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT 2014, VOLUME 2 INFLUENCE OF PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES ON MILK CONSUMER’S CHOICE IN LITHUANIA Lina Pilelienė, Vytautas Liesionis Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania l.pileliene@evf.vdu.lt; v.liesionis@evf.vdu.lt Abstract Consumer decision making is one of the most relevant topics in marketing. Therefore, organizations endeavour to create products in a way that correspond to their customers’ needs and preferences. The emerging worldwide interest in healthy lifestyle and organic products could become the key success factor for food producing organizations. The article aims to determine the product attributes affecting consumer’s choice of a milk product in Lithuania. The method of Conjoint analysis was chosen for the research. The research was provided as a repetition of the same research, done in 2009. According to the principles of the Conjoint analysis, six attributes of milk were named: ‘Country of origin’, ‘Naturalness’, ‘Package size’, ‘Package type’, ‘Richness’, and ‘Price’. Each of the attributes was divided into several levels. While analyzing the structure of milk market in 2014, four market segments were distinguished: ‘Irrationally price concerned’, ‘Rationally price concerned’, ‘Ethnocentric ecologists’, and ‘Richness concerned’. Such segments like ‘Ethnocentric’, ‘Price-and-Richness concerned’ or ‘Ethnocentric price-concerned’ have disappeared from the market during the ive-year period. According to research results, following suggestions were made for the companies dealing with the milk market in Lithuania: irst of all, a company has to make a decision about the segment to work with; afterwards, based on the results of conjoint analysis (conditional utilities of attributes levels), optimal propositions for every particular segment have to be composed. Key words: conjoint analysis, consumer decision making, country-of-origin, milk, organic, price. Introduction Consumer decision making is one of the most relevant topics in marketing. The fulilment of customers’ wishes in a proitable way requires companies to understand which aspects of their product and service are most valued by the customer (Band and Shah, 2013). It is extremely important for organizations to understand the peculiarities of consumer preferences and their behaviour, concerning product choice. Considering product as a bundle of attributes, the assumption can be made that certain attributes affect consumer choice decision more than others. Regarding the intensiication of competition, the necessity for not only providing marketable agricultural and food products, but adapting economically effective farming methods is becoming vital for the organizations. On the other hand, growing consumer particularity and sophistication motivate the agricultural and food product manufacturers to practice the manufacturing and farming methods, which are environment-guarding and socially acceptable. The dimension of product’s naturalness emerges. However, the producers of organic agricultural and food products often face grater expenditures, related to high standards for certiications of ecology. The inal price (which is being paid by the end consumer) increases. The other factor in the contemporary marketplace, which can be considered as one of the most important factors affecting consumer decisions while evaluating domestic as well as foreign products is product’s country-of-origin. With the increased accessibility of foreign products the role of country-of-origin is even more signiicant. Many scholars (e.g., Henderson and Hoque, 2010; Sharma, 2011) have analyzed country- of-origin as a factor determining consumer’s choice. Therefore, an assumption can be made that such product attributes as naturalness, country-of-origin and price can be crucial while evaluating and choosing food, particularly, milk. Moreover, some more important product attributes, like product package or nutrition information can be named. However, the importance of every single attribute in purchase decision still lacks scientiic substantiation. The problem of the research is expressed by a question: what product attributes affect consumer’s decision while choosing milk and how can these attributes be managed. The object of the research is product attributes affecting milk consumer’s choice. The aim of the research is to determine the product attributes affecting consumer’s choice of milk as a product. Following tasks were set achieving to reach the aim of the research: − to determine the most important product attributes for Lithuanian consumers while choosing milk; − to detect changes in the importance of milk’s attributes for Lithuanian consumers during the ive-year period; − to segment the milk market in Lithuania; − to provide suggestions for the companies dealing with the milk market in Lithuania. Materials and Methods Achieving to solve the research problem and to reach the aim, the method of full proile Conjoint ECONOMICS