conservation, characterisation and management of grapevine genetic

The survey was created as an internet based questionnaire, which has been shown to be
superior to traditional offline (paper-and-pencil) method (Sethuraman, Kerin, & Cron, 2005).
Accordingly, web-based surveys were found to be an especially suitable enhancement of
pictorial elements and result in greater participant attention.
The following table gives a brief overview of all samples of the study. A total of 11,312
wine consumers, recruited via a panel provider, completed the online experiment in December
2009. In order to qualify for the study, respondents were not allowed to work in marketing,
market research and in the wine industry, were required to have drunk red or white wines in
the last two months, and to have purchased a bottle of red or white wine in the last three
months. By extending the period of wine purchase, we wanted to include more occasional /
light wine buyers.
Table 2: Samples description (in percentage)
Frequency of
Germany UK Canada Canada France US US
consumption
English French
Chicago New-York
Number of respondents 2,015 2,021 1,036 982 2,027 1,614 1,617
≥ once a week 31.7 46.8 36.7 33.6 39.9 42.4 53.9
Once a week 32.4 28.7 29.1 29.8 32.1 30.0 27.5
Once or twice a month 28.1 18.9 25.0 25.1 21.3 21.2 14.0
< once a month 7.8 5.6 9.3 11.5 8.7 6.4 4.7
Total % 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Analysing how consumers trade off different wine attribute levels in their choices from
visual shelves allowed us to estimate the importance attributes have on wine choice. We
should remind that these findings relates to the offering of French wines as designed in the
experiment.
Table 3 presents the attribute importance on the aggregated (unsegmented) level for each
market we analysed. Findings can be read as follows: assuming that the decision to purchase a
bottle of wine equals 100% in total, then in market 1 price accounts for about two fifths (40%)
and brand for about one fifth (18.8%) of the wine choice decision.
Table 3: (A selection of) Attribute importance 1
Market 1 Market 2 Market 3 Market 4 Market 5 Market 6 Market 7
Brand 18,8% 4,8% 4,9% 7,9% 5,6% 8,2% 4,7%
Grape Variety 14,2% 19,9% 9,4% 32,5% 21,2% 41,0% 19,1%
Price 40,5% 65,1% 82,2% 53,6% 64,8% 36,6% 62,5%
Sustainable 3,2% 3,7% 0,4% 0,5% 3,1% 6,1% 3,8%
Not surprisingly, price is the most important attribute for consumers (except in market 6)
when selecting a wine to purchase to drink with friends and/or the partner. The importance of
price varies quite a lot from one market to another: price accounts for 82% of the
selection/buying process in the market 3 as opposed to 36.6% in market 6. Except for
market 1, grape variety is the second most important attribute for consumers when selecting
wines. Grape variety is even the most important attribute in market 6, accounting for 41% of
the choice process, as opposed to 9.2% in market 3. Brand (and brand specific packaging) is
not as important as producers might expect (potentially because of the small relative
1 Countries cannot be identified here and their order is not identical with Table 2.
5