YOUNG URBAN ADULTS PREFERENCE FOR WINE ATTRIBUTES APPLYING BEST-WORST SCALING: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY FOR REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

A. Kuhar, H. Hristov

Abstract: This work focuses on measuring the importance of the attributes, which influence the wine choice of Macedonian young adult wine consumers, when purchase a wine in wine stores. Our goal is try to identify significant behavioral differences across wine knowledge and gender-demographic subgroups of the sample, in order to give marketers an instrument to develop more efficient marketing strategies. Most marketing researchers use rating scales to understand consumer preferences. These have a range of problems, which can be ameliorated by the use of the new technique, best-worst scaling (BWS). The objectives of the paper are twofold: first, to explore the preferences, gender and knowledge differences of the Republic of Macedonia young urban adults towards wine attributes; and second, to present best-worst scaling method and to demonstrate its empirical use. A total of 123 Macedonian young consumers between the age of 25 and 34 purchasing wine in wine stores participated in a face-to-face interview preformed in three wine stores in Skopje and one in Bitola. The best-worst scaling method was applied to measure the level of importance to a list of most common attributes used in a choice of wine. The study results show that young urban adults in their selection of wine give more importance for the wine attributes: price, type of wine (red/white), brand and grape variety. The attributes less preferred were alcohol content, medal/awards wine closure and label design. Moreover, the study showed that genders differ more than the segments formed on the base of the knowledge on the use of wine attributes in selection of wine.

Keywords: Macedonia; urban adults; wine; young consumers

Date published: 2019-04-19