U.S. consumers view the marketplace

✍ Scribed by Stephen A. Greyser; Steven L. Diamond

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1983
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 856 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-7034
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00412480

✦ Synopsis

This report focuses on characterizations by a cross-sectional national sample of U.S. consumers toward balance in the marketplace between "buyer beware" and "seller beware." It is based on data from three trend studies (made in 1977, 1979, 1981), exploring views about today's, tomorrow's, and the ideal marketplace.

Overall, Americans see "today's marketplace" as having a dominantly buyer beware character (2.83 on a 7-point scale). This represents modest improvement over the public's earlier ratings. The public anticipates conditions moving further toward seller beware in the next "three or four years" (3.05). However, these views of today's and tomorrow's marketplaces contrast with where they position the "ideal marketplace" -virtually at the midpoint of the scale (3.98, and with 53% placing it at "4").

That Americans consistently (over the three studies) see the ideal marketplace near the midpoint on the spectrum suggests not only that they seek more balance in the marketplace, but also that balance -not a seller-beware marketplace -is their stated goal, consistent with the American cultural tradition of compromise.