engleski

Domestic vs. Foreign Product Competitiveness on Croatian Market: A Research in transition

The globalization of world markets has enabled consumers all around the world to have different products made by different producers in different countries at their disposal. This has brought to significant changes in consumers' behavior, especially in transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which were more or less closed for decades, especially for "western" products. Moreover, they were not only characterized by limited product choice, but in many cases by the lack of any products to choose from at all. There fore it is not surprising that opening up of these markets has caused a real demand boom for foreign products of all kinds. Although Croatia, i.e. ex-Yugoslavia never was such a closed market as most of other Central and Eastern Euoprean markets, according to recent media reports, Croatian consumers spend about 1 &#8211 ; 1.5 billion US$ yearly shopping abroad. It also seems that imported products in Croatia are more successful then domestic ones. This research concentrates on this particular problem. The main goal is to find out what elements create product competitiveness and how Croatian consumers evaluate these elements for Croatian vs. foreign products. The research was based on hypothesis that consumers choose competitive products, and their competitiveness is based on: -positive image of product/brand -low cost of factors of production -if the two above cannot be accomplished, product has to be unique or highly differentiated, and -marketing organization, skills and strategy of the company. In other words, competitiveness can be created as cost advantage or marketing advantage. When making buying decisions, consumers evaluate the perceived product quality (in broadest sense) and sacrifice they have to make in order to buy the product. If this evaluation turns out positive (quality is worth the sacrifice), they buy the product. In context of our research country of origin represents animportant feature of product quality It can create either postive or negative preception of product, and thus influence consumers' choice. In order to test Croatian consumers' behavior in this sense, a written, self-administered survey was created. The competitiveness of five different consumer product groups and five countries of origin including Croatia were surveyed. A random sample of 202 Croatian full-aged urban consumers from Zagreb, Rijeka, Split and Osijek participated in the research and some intenresting results were obtained. The definition of product competitiveness of Croatian consumers is based upon product quality. It consists of number of elemants, some of which are closely related to marketing. Product price was named as a second most important element of product competitiveness and country of origin as a third. It seems that quality &#8211 ; price relationship of Croatian products is adequately set among most of the surveyed product groups (products of relatively highest quality are of relatively highest price), but in general thay are set too high for given quality on all levels in each product group. Croatian consumers do live in a "global village" &#8211 ; they know and buy many foreign products and share global stereotypes about different countries of product origin. They are not ethnocentric, but would, due to the positive perception of Croatian product quality and consciousness about the influence of foreign product choice on national economic development, choose and buy Croatian product, even if they have to pay more for it. Their criteria is not competitive but affordable prices. However, they are quite sensitive to elements of marketing advantage that domestic marketers don't pay much attention to: promotioanal efforts, place of purchase image, relation slaesman &#8211 ; customer, etc. It implies that Croatian consumers are much more sensitive to marketing then to price advantage and competitiveness creatian for Croatian products should be based on this fact.

product competitiveness; buyer behavior; domestic vs. foreign product choice; country of origin

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