TV Survey: Consumer Misconceptions Abound
By TWICE Staff -- TWICE, 5/27/2008
Odessa, Fla. - Two-thirds of shoppers would rather buy an LCD than a plasma TV, but many consumers are carrying some misconceptions that manufacturers may want to correct, a new consumer study has found.
Those are among the results of a recent consumer survey of buying preferences and attitudes conducted by audio/video market research firm TFC Info.
Among the most important factors influencing many shoppers’ buying decisions is product longevity, TFC Info’s “Flat Panel End User Survey: LCD vs. Plasma 2008,” revealed.
The researchers discovered that “manufacturers seem to be giving these shoppers too much credit for their knowledge of display technologies, especially with regard to product lifetime. The results showed clearly that manufacturers do not use the kind of language that the average shoppers leverage in buying decisions.”
More than half of the surveyed flat panel purchasers said that flat panel technology has an expected product life of five years, not realizing that the lifetime of both LCD and plasma displays will often exceed this with normal viewing, TFC said.
“Since so many respondents placed high importance on product lifetime, it would be advantageous for manufacturers of flat screen displays to address this misconception and confusion regarding lifetime of these displays in different terms,” TFC said in its report.
The report also found that manufacturers may not be giving shoppers enough credit in their purchase decisions pertaining to price. Although price is important to shoppers; the number of current and future flat panel purchasers who rated price as most important was not as high as many believed, TFC said.
“Flat panel purchasers are not as price sensitive as many put them down to be. LCD panels have been gaining market-share against plasma even in sizes where plasma had the price advantage,” stated Tanya Lippke, TFC Info Manager of Survey Market Research. “Although displays must be within a competitive price range for their size and resolution to be considered, clearly within that range customers are choosing technologies based on other factors and have not been picking the lowest priced display.”
Respondents were surveyed on important buying factors, and price did not even make the coveted top three.
Factors Rated Very Important By Flat-Panel Purchasers
TFC Info’s “Flat Panel End User Survey: LCD vs. Plasma 2008” study is now available for purchase by contacting Tanya Lippke, at (207) 783-0055 or tmlippke@tfcinfo.com.
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I think the TFC Info's researchers are missing several important points when they look at "Factors rated very important by flat-panel purchasers". I would call the purchase of a flat-panel a "threshold" purchase; i.e., you are willing to spend over a certain amount (call it x dollars for the TV) and a small increment beyond that (say $50-100) is not a factor in the purchase decision because x dollars >> $50-100. So for a certain range (in this case from x to x+$100), price is not as important a factor. Secondly, the people who purchase a larger flat-panel are of a higher economic status than the population as a whole, and for those at the upper end of that strata (say the top 25%), price is not a factor at all. This skews "Factors rated very important by flat-panel purchasers". And finally, most flat-panel purchasers are not sophisticated buyers when it comes to the technical aspects and more likely to be influenced by the inherently brighter LCD display in a brick & mortar store and be clueless to the fact that it is an unnatural picture in a home environment, that the deeper blacks and lower brightness of a plasma makes for a much more natural picture.
John Alln - 2008-28-5 12:09:00 EDT -
The reason for this stupidity is because of the quality of sales personnel on the floor in the Majors like Best Buy and Circuit City. You can't expect a kid making minimum wage who was flipping burgers prior to this new position to have any sort of sales training or knowledge of this industry. It's quite a joke how poorly the average customer is treated on the sales floor with fables about how his plasma tv will run out of gas too quickly if left on. We have created our worst nightmare with executives like CC's cutting costs to maintain profits for the bottom line. We got what we deserved.
Jack Meoff - 2008-27-5 15:08:00 EDT
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