چکیده:
The machine made carpet industry is one of the main and most famous industries in Iran and especially in the city of Yazd. However there is little information about customer preferences for different attributes of this product. In this article we tried to estimate the relative importance of the main attributes affecting customer desire for purchasing machine made carpet and the utility values for the different levels of each one by means of conjoint analysis. In addition to this, we created customer segments with similar preference structures using cluster analysis. Six attributes have been considered in this paper: design, color, number of colors, density, primary material and brand. Twenty seven profiles by combining different levels of these attributes using fractional factorial design approach have been created. These profiles were evaluated by 380 customers in the city of Yazd. Results have shown that design of carpet is the most important attribute for the choice of carpet. Color, primary material, brand, density and number of colors are the next priorities for customers respectively. Also cluster analysis identified five clusters of customers with similar preferences.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"In this article we tried to estimate the relative importance of the main attributes affecting customer desire for purchasing machine made carpet and the utility values for the different levels of each one by means of conjoint analysis.
This technique has been used in the number of marketing researches to determine the relative importance of product attributes among potential buyers as well as the customer's preferences (Ares & Deliza, 2010; Ares, Gimenez & Deliza, 2010; Behzadian, Aghdaie & Razavi, 2011; Chen, Hsu & Lin, 2010; Claret et al.
Since fullfactorial design was not appropriate in the present study due to the large number of possible different combinations (4×4×3×4×4×3=2304),consequently, and in order to reduce the number of product profiles to be evaluated by participants, a fractional factorial design was used to effectively test the effect of attributes on buyer's preferences, missing the least of information (Halbrendt,Wirth, & Vaughn, 1991; Harrison, Ozayan& Meyers, 1998).
Table 2: Aggregate results of Conjoint Analysis for the overall sample: relative importance of attributes and part worth per level and attribute به تصویر صفحه رجوع شود Segmentation Having determined the preferences from the utilities estimated in the Conjoint Analysis, a Cluster Analysis was then applied to classify the customers into homogeneous preference groups.
s: non-significant 1'Rial' is the currency of Iran Table 4: Results of Conjoint Analysis by cluster: relative importance of attributes and part worths per level and attribute به تصویر صفحه رجوع شود Conclusion While the use of machine made carpet has grown dramatically in recent years, research that explores how customers shape their attitudes has been lacking."