Influence of product attributes on milk consumer's choice in Lithuania

ENConsumer decision making is one of the most relevant topics in marketing. Therefore, organizations endeavour to create products in a way that correspond to their customers’ needs and preferences. The emerging worldwide interest in healthy lifestyle and organic products could become the key success factor for food producing organizations. The article aims to determine the product attributes affecting consumer’s choice of a milk product in Lithuania. The method of Conjoint analysis was chosen for the research. The research was provided as a repetition of the same research, done in 2009. According to the principles of the Conjoint analysis, six attributes of milk were named: ‘Country of origin’, ‘Naturalness’, ‘Package size’, ‘Package type’, ‘Richness’, and ‘Price’. Each of the attributes was divided into several levels. While analyzing the structure of milk market in 2014, four market segments were distinguished: ‘Irrationally price concerned’, ‘Rationally price concerned’, ‘Ethnocentric ecologists’, and ‘Richness concerned’. Such segments like ‘Ethnocentric’, ‘Price-and-Richness concerned’ or ‘Ethnocentric price-concerned’ have disappeared from the market during the ive-year period. According to research results, following suggestions were made for the companies dealing with the milk market in Lithuania: irst of all, a company has to make a decision about the segment to work with; afterwards, based on the results of conjoint analysis (conditional utilities of attributes levels), optimal propositions for every particular segment have to be composed. Key words: conjoint analysis, consumer decision making, country-of-origin, milk, organic, price.