Expected versus experienced quality: trade-off with price

This study was conducted in order to compare the behaviour of consumers who had to choose products under economic constraint in two conditions: when perceived quality was based on expectation generated by packaging images, versus when perceived quality was based on sensory experience in presence of packaging images. Randomly selected participants were endowed with a real budget and placed in five different price/budget situations. They stated their choice among six orange juices in each price/budget situation. This task was performed for the two different information conditions. Results demonstrate that participants who chose products without tasting made their choices more rapidly, chose a larger number of variants and their choices tended to be less influenced by liking scores, as compared to participants who chose products after tasting. The comparison between these two conditions permitted us to understand behaviour differences when consumers were in a total or restricted information situation.