Nigerian Consumer Attitudes Toward Foreign and Domestic Products

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Consumer

and

Foreign

Attitudes

Toward

Products

Domestic

ChikeOkechuku* UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR

VincentOnyemah** LECTURER, LAGOS BUSINESS SCHOOL

The Nigerian consumer obsession with foreign-made goods has had a detrimental effect on the domestic manufacturing industry. This paper uses conjoint analysis to investigate the importance of a product's country-of-manufacture relative to other attributes in the Nigerian consumer choice. It was found that the country-of-manufacture is significantly more important than price and other product attributes in consumer preference. Nigerian consumers INTRODUCTION

The

developmentand sustenance of

the domestic manufacturing sector in a free economy is dependent on consumer acceptance of the goods manufactured in that country. The proliferation of imported brands, many of which have achieved enviable market positions worldwide, presents a difficult challenge for domestic manufacturers. *

have a negative image of the 'Made in Nigeria' label, rating it lower than labels from more economically developed countries. Additional analyses indicate that the superior reliability and technological advancement of foreign products are the most important correlates of the Nigerian consumer's likelihood to purchase foreign products. Implications for foreign marketers, domestic governments and domestic manufacturers are discussed.

This is all the more salient in developing economies where the manufacturing sector is more rudimentary. The development of the manufacturing sector in such economies is hampered by the fact that consumers in those economies view domestic products less favorably than products from more advanced countries (Ettenson 1993; Jaffe and Martinez 1995; Papadopoulos, Heslop,

Chike Okechuku is Professor of Marketing at the University Canada.

of Windsor in Ontario,

* *Vincent Onyemah was formerly a Marketing lecturer at the Lagos Business School, Lagos, Nigeria. He is currently a PhD student at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada. JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES,

30, 3

(THIRD QUARTER1999): 611-622.

611

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NIGERIAN CONSUMER ATTITUDES TOWARD FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC PRODUCTS

and Beracs 1990; Wang and Lamb 1983). Low incomes notwithstanding, consumers in developing countries are increasingly aware, through television, the internet, and generally improved communications worldwide, of the superior quality of goods available to consumers in developed countries and they want the same. This holds true not only for consumers in the former socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe but also for consumers in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia. While many studies have investigated the importance of a product's country of origin (i.e., country of creation or association) or c