Position-Dependent order effects on the prediction of consumer preferences in repeated choice experiments

ABSTRACT

Using stated choice data collected by experimental design with repeated choice tasks, this study developed an approach to quantify the position-dependent order effects on the prediction of preferences and marginal willingness to pay for product attributes. Results showed that repeated choice tasks allow learning to occur. Models with order effect adjustments showed significant improvements in goodness of fit. Attribute-specific polynomial trends showed the best fit among all models, which could possibly be explained by respondents’ familiarity and sensitivity to different product attributes. Repeated-choice experiments have a good potential to capture consumer preferences more accurately than the single-choice design. But order effects need to be taken into account for preferences and market prediction.

KEYWORDS:

• Repeated choice experiments
• order effects
• choice modelling
• marketing

JEL CLASSIFICATIONS:

• C90
• D83
• M31

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Salient information or reference effect might be potential reasons for the negative estimate on enriched cage systems. Even though the econometric model was constructed with the conventional cages as default, respondents might evaluate the enriched cage system relative to the free-run or free range systems more heavily when performing actual choice tasks.

² Only attributes with significant order effects are reported for space limit. A full list of results with order effects estimated for all attributes is available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

The financial support of the Poultry Industry Council (Project Number 310) and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Project number 200424/200427) is gratefully acknowledged. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. Any remaining errors or omissions are the authors’ responsibility.