Abstract

Sampling is an important part of marketing for non-durable goods meaning food products. It provides space not only to introduce news on the market but also remind traditional types of products with innovative ingredients, new flavours and other variations. Moreover, the significant role of sampling is to support the sale of promoted products. The participation of promoter sustains this main role of sampling (support the sale). Following this reason, it is necessary to perceive the social aspects of sampling concerning customers and their purchasing decisions. The main purpose of the research is to verify the sampling efficiency concerning the customer purchase decisions in the conditions of the Slovak Republic considering the influence of the promoters, their behaviour and appearance. In addition to price factor impact on customer purchase decisions, the paper solved the social aspects of the interaction with the promoter and the taste of the product. For obtaining relevant results, 484 customers of retail stores and at the same time participants of sampling have been included in the survey. For meeting the stated goal, the methodological tool of the research method was a questionnaire survey which addressed the sampling participants. The paper presents the results that in most cases, Slovak customers don’t purchase the product immediately after the sampling. When they decide to buy, the central aspect is the taste of the product and not the price. Thus, in a taste-price ratio, the taste is considered more convincing and more effective. This finding is in contrasts with previous ones about consumer’s price sensitivity. Since sampling is a humanized sales promotion, it is also necessary to perceive the social factors of interaction with the promoter on the purchase decision. Sampling participants consider the behaviour of the promoter and communication skills to be significantly more important than the appearance. The results of the research could be useful to reveal a considerable room for improvement concerning purchase decisions after sampling. It can be influenced by increasing attractiveness of sampling by interesting innovations, either in the products themselves or in the forms of sampling provisions.

Keywords: customers, preferences, product sampling, promoters, purchase decision, social aspects

JEL Classification: M31, M537, L66.

Cite as: Sedliacikova, M., Kocianova, A., Dzian, M., Moresova, M., & Drabek, J. (2020). Product sampling effect on purchase decision also by social aspects. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 3, 222-233. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2020.3-16

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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