Total Quality Management
ISSN: 1478-3363 (Print) 1478-3371 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctqm20
Relative impacts from product quality, service
quality, and experience quality on customer
perceived value and intention to shop for the
coffee shop market
Hueiju Yu & Wenchang Fang
To cite this article: Hueiju Yu & Wenchang Fang (2009) Relative impacts from product
quality, service quality, and experience quality on customer perceived value and intention
to shop for the coffee shop market, Total Quality Management, 20:11, 1273-1285, DOI:
10.1080/14783360802351587
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Total Quality Management
Vol. 20, No. 11, November 2009, 1273–1285
Relative impacts from product quality, service quality, and
experience quality on customer perceived value and intention to
shop for the coffee shop market
Hueiju Yua and Wenchang Fangb
a
Department of Business Administration, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan; bDepartment of
Business Administration, National Taipei University; Taiwan
This paper provides empirical results on relative impacts from product quality, service
quality and experience quality on customer perceived value and intention to shop in the
future, for a coffee shop market. Pine and Gilmore’s (1999, 2000) framework of an
experience economy generally assumes experience is a major contributor, compared
with product and service, to a customer’s perceived value. While an experience
economy gets more attention in the retailing sector, few empirical studies have been
done. This study tries to fill the gap and hypothesises that the relative impacts of the
experience economy would be different over individual differences. Starbucks coffee
shops were chosen as the target retailers. A questionnaire was used to collect both
quantitative and qualitative data from 147 customers of Starbucks coffee in Taiwan.
The evidence reveals that Pine and Gilmore’s framework of an experience economy
is not always true. The relative importance of product, service and experience
changes over the income levels and the frequency of consumption. In addition, the
findings also contribute some valuable insights to better use the model of the
experience economy.
Keywords: quality; experience economy; Maslow’s theory; one-to-one marketing
Introduction
Creating customer value has become the next source of competitive advantage (Woodruff,
1997). Many studies have been done to explore the determinants of customer value for
more than half century. From the mid-twentieth century, the concept of value is mainly
focused on how to manufacture products with high quality (Crosby, 1979; Feigenbaum,
1951; Juran et al., 1974). In the era of service economy, how to meet customers’ expec-
tations and to measure customers’ satisfaction turns to be the locus of value creation
(Gorst et al., 1998; Kristensen et al., 1992; Parasuraman et al., 1988). However, Pine
and Gilmore (1999, 2000) argue that to meet customers’ needs and expectations is not
enough for companies to create value in the next generation. After that, many discussions
and thoughts have been proposed based on their experience theory (Kozinets et al., 2002;
Lawn, 2004; Mathwick et al., 2001, 2002; Mitchell, 2003; Pine & Gilmore, 2000; Poulsson
& Kale, 2004). At the end of the year 2005, ‘staging of the experiences’ was listed by
Businessweek as a best idea in their ‘Best of 2005’ print edition.
Specifically, Pine and Gilmore’s theory proposes that the progression of economic
value can be broken down into four stages (Figure 1). Offering commodities to customers
for them to make their own products is the first stage. Making standard products for
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1478-3363 print/ISSN 1478-3371 online
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14783360802351587
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1274 H. Yu and W. Fang
Figure 1. Experience economy: progression of economic value.
Source: Pine and Gilmore (1999, p. 22).
customers is the second stage. The core value addition of the first two stages concerns the
quality of the product in the progression of economic value. The third stage of value added
activities is to deliver services to customers. At this stage, the economic value is enhanced
by providing better services to customers. The fourth stage, which is the major contri-
bution, is the stage of experience.
In addition, Mitchell (2003) also supports the rationale of examining the above three
determinants. He points out that marketers use brand experience in three different ways.
First, it relates to the product itself, and is mainly concerned with quality of the product.
The second dimension of brand experience is the experience of dealing with customer
services. The third dimension of brand experience is the experience the marketers sell.
Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) also advocate that the next practice in value creation
is the co-creation experience between the firm and customer, thus the processes of value
creation are rapidly shifting from a product- and firm-centric view to personalised
consumer experiences.
According to Pine and Gilmore’s framework, value added usually comes from product,
service and experience. The former adds less and the latter adds more. Experience can
offer higher value because it is personal and memorable. For instance, what does the
brand name of Louis Vurtton (LV) mean? Does it mean quality, service and an experience
of elegance? The answer is all. However, what makes LV a high valued brand is not only
the quality and service, but also mainly the experience of elegance. An experience
economy has also emerged in many areas such as Disney and Nike in the entertainment
sector, and Starbucks in the retailing sector. The above examples all assume that a mem-
orable experience becomes one of the major determinants of customer perceived value.
This paper is especially interested in the retailing sector.
However, there is scarce evidence to prove the well-accepted concept of ‘an experi-
ence as a higher value economic offering’ in the retailing sector. While many past
studies have proposed the importance of customer experiences, few empirical studies
have been performed on the relative contributions of product, service and experience to
customers’ perceived value. This study further hypothesises that the impact of the experi-
ence economy would be different over customer income and shopping frequency in the
retailing sector. The theoretical bases of those assumptions are described as follows.
Total Quality Management 1275
Theoretical framework and proposed model
Theoretical bases
In developing the research model, this study builds on four theoretical frameworks used or
suggested in previous research. First, the Reasoned Action Theory (Fishbein & Ajzen,
1975) supports the hypothesised relationships between perceptions, attitudes and intention
behaviour. Second, the experience economy (Pine & Gilmore, 1999) provides the rationale
to categorise people’s perceptions of values into product quality, service satisfaction and
memorable experience. Third, Maslow’s theory of needs hierarchy (Maslow, 1943, 1970,
1987) proposes the hypotheses that the impacts of product, service and experience on
customers’ perceived value may be different across income levels. Finally, the concept
of one-to-one marketing (Peppers & Rogers, 1993, 2005; Peppers et al., 1999) provides
the rationale to investigate the individual differences in value perception of experience
over customers’ consumption frequency. Figure 2 presents the integration of the model
underpinned by the theories discussed in this paper.
Hypotheses based on Fishbein & Ajzen’s TRA
To predict people’s intention behaviour, a widely studied Theory of Reasoned Action
(TRA) is used. In this theory (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), intention behaviour is influenced
by beliefs and attitudes. Beliefs are defined as subjective perceptions of the consequence
if an individual consumes the product. According to TRA, beliefs may further influence
attitude that is defined as feelings in mind about the consumption. Preference is a positive
feeling and can be viewed as the degree of how well an individual likes to consume.
Customer perceived value is the benefits perceived from the customer’s point of view,
which is a subjective evaluation of product attributes, performance and the consequences
of using that product (Woodruff, 1997). In this study, customer perceived value is defined
as the degree of how well the benefits felt. Value in mind is further hypothesised to affect
the preferences and, finally, preferences affect the intention to be a customer, which is
defined as the degree of the willingness to consume again in the future. In sum, two
hypotheses are made:
H1a: Perceived value would be positively related to customers’ preferences.
H1b: Preferences would be positively related to customers’ intention to consume in the
future.
Figure 2. Research model.
1276 H. Yu and W. Fang
Hypotheses based on Pine and Gilmore’s experience economy
This study proposes product quality, service satisfaction and memorable experience as
three determinants of customers’ perceived value, based on Pine and Gilmore’s (1999)
experience economy.
In this study, product quality is defined as the degree of how well the product specifi-
cation fits the customer’s expectation. If people think the product specification fits their
need, they will be more likely to think the transaction is worthy. Service quality means
that the degree of how well the service delivery meets their needs. People generally
believe that the more customer satisfaction the more value customers perceive (Anderson
et al., 1994; Saravanan & Rao, 2006; Westlund et al., 2005; Zeithaml, 2000). As a result,
this paper posits the following hypotheses:
H2a: Product quality would be positively related to customers’ perceived value.
H2b: Service quality would be positively related to customers’ perceived value.
Experiences are like goods and services that they have their own distinct character-
istics that customers judge to be worth the price. In this study, our purpose is not to
discuss the components of an experience but to investigate the value created by experi-
ences. In the retailing sector, we will especially focus on the contextual (memorable)
experience in general and use Pine and Gilmore’s keyword ‘memorable’ as the distinction
of the experience. Contextual experience is thus viewed as the degree of how well the
contextual atmosphere can be impressed and memorised after the consumption. Therefore,
we propose the fifth hypothesis:
H2c: Contextual experience would be positively related to customers’ perceived value.
The above five hypotheses concern the correlation analyses to explore the bivariate
relationship. However, in the real world, the effects of product quality, service satisfaction
and contextual experience exist simultaneously. For this reason, a statistical testing on
multvariate models is needed (Neumann, 1978). That is, customer’s perceived value
could be predicted by three such determinants, and can be expressed as a hypothesised
path model:
Hypothesised Prediction Model 1. Perceived value ¼ f (product quality, service quality, con-
textual experience), for overall sample.
Hypotheses based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943, 1970), people have innate
desires to satisfy a set of needs such as physiological needs, security needs, belongingness
needs, esteem needs and self-actualisation needs. Needs of knowledge/understanding
and needs of aesthetics are later augmented (Maslow, 1987). Maslow believes that these
needs are arranged in a hierarchy of importance. Individuals prioritise basic physiological
needs, moving with increasing incomes to the higher order of needs (Trigg, 2004).
Although past studies reveal that the needs hierarchy is not always present, these theories
still provide a general framework for categorising and prioritising needs (Wahba &
Bridwell, 1976), and are commonly used by marketers in market segmentations
(Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000).
In this paper, product quality is supposed to fulfil the basic needs such as physiological
needs and security needs. Service satisfies the social needs such as belongingness and esteem
needs. The experience is accordingly to fulfill the even higher level of needs, such as self-
actualisation, knowledge/understanding and aesthetics. People with more income are
assumed to be willing to pay the price for experience to satisfy the higher level of needs.
Total Quality Management 1277
As a result, this paper hypothesises that the impact of product quality, service satisfaction
and experience on perceived value would be different across income levels.
Hypothesised Prediction Model 2 (H3). Perceived value ¼ f (product quality, service
satisfaction, experience), would change over the income-levels.
Hypotheses based on Peppers’ one-to-one marketing
The new marketing concept moves from customer acquisition to customer retention.
Peppers and Rogers (1993, 2005) propose an IDIC (Identification, Differentiation, Inter-
action and Customisation) model as a one-to-one marketing framework. That is, customers
are not the same. Some are more valuable and they deserve to receive more attention. For
instance, some people shop in one retailing store frequently, but other people shop in the
same shop occasionally. The former may belong to the group of important customers, and
the latter may be less important on the basis of transaction frequency. According to con-
cepts of one-to-one marketing, it is essential to treat different customers in different ways.
Some empirical findings also reveal the method for firms to manage a long-term customer
relationship based on individual customer revenue (Yu, 2007). One of the easy ways to
differentiate the importance of customers is the frequency of transaction. The benefits
of retaining frequent customers include one-time cost of acquisition, and the fact that
they have greater profit potential with spending more in the same shop (Barnes, 2001).
Frequent customers also feel comfortable dealing with the same shop and cost less to
serve. In addition, frequent customers spread positive word of mouth and are less price
sensitive. Consequently, a closer investigation on the behaviours of frequent customers
is crucial to retailers.
In this paper, we are curious about which factor frequent customers perceive as having
more value. As a result, this paper hypothesises that the impact of product quality, service
satisfaction and contextual experience on perceived value would be different across the
levels of consumption frequency.
Hypothesised Prediction Model 3 (H4). Perceived value ¼ f (product quality, service
satisfaction, contextual experience), would change over the consumption frequency-levels.
Methodology
Research design
We selected one specific consumption experience, drinking coffee at Starbucks coffee shops,
as the source of responses. There are three reasons to support this design. First, the coffee
industry is revealed to be one of the industries affected by an experience economy (Pine
& Gilmore, 1999). Secondly, compared with an unusual experience, a common behaviour,
such as coffee consumption, is easier to explore with individual differences – if there are
any. Thirdly, Starbucks coffee is most frequently mentioned in articles on the experience
economy (Lawn, 2004). The data were collected by a questionnaire in which some open-
ended questions were also included for both quantitative and qualitative analyses.
Research sample
The subjects consist of 147 students in three classes (undergraduate, MBA and Executive
MBA programs) from one national university in Taipei, Taiwan. They all have consump-
tion experience at Starbucks coffee shops. Twenty-three percent of them are in Executive
MBA programmes and are also young professional workers; 59% are regular full time
MBA students; and the other 18% are full time undergraduate students. There are 63%
1278 H. Yu and W. Fang
male and 37% female members. Although such a student sample may not represent an
unbiased group and thus cause a generalisation problem, the study used student subjects
for three reasons.
(1) The customers of Starbucks in Taiwan are mainly students and young professional
workers (Chen, 2002). This makes us more comfortable using undergraduate/
MBA (students) and EMBA (young professional workers) as our sample.
(2) According to the web information of Starbucks Coffee International, there are 166
Starbucks coffee shops in Taiwan, and 101 (61%) of them are located in Taipei
city. This study may provide some empirical evidence of the Asian metropolitan con-
sumption style.
(3) The use of students can decrease the effect of other demographics variances.
As a result, the findings can provide a further understanding of customer perception
from an Asian’s viewpoint, and offer an impetus for future research.
This study further divided the sample into two income groups: one’s income is less
than NT$20,000 (US$625) which includes most young full time students, the other is
the group with higher income, which consists mostly of the graduate or EMBA students
as young professional workers. Forty-seven (32%) students are categorised as the rela-
tively higher-income group in this study. The reason of choosing NT$20,000 (US$625)
to categorise income groups is that it is close to the basic labour wage requested by the
government in Taiwan.
This study also categorised the sample into two consumption frequency-level groups.
According to the 20 –80 principle, the frequent customers within the top 20% can be
recognised as a group of important customers. In this study, 22 (15%) subjects transacting
with Starbucks at least once a month were thus recognised as relatively higher-frequent
customers in this study.
Measure
The questionnaire items include background information, product quality, service satisfac-
tion, contextual experience, preference and intention. For each item, a list of five-point
Likert scales, with disagree completely (1) – agree completely (5) endpoints, were collected
after a pilot test. The pilot study was conduct by ten graduate students who have been
customers of Starbucks. They were asked to answer the instrument and discussed the
wordings of question items, and to check whether those items can represent the definitions
of each research variable validly. The final items of the questionnaire are listed in Table 1.
Quantitative analysis only represents the numerical relationship. To explore more insights
into customers’ perception, two open questions were asked: ‘Please can you describe 1–3
characteristics on what you like and dislike most while consuming in Starbucks?’ The
results will play as a complement in interpretation of those numerical findings.
Analysis and results
Scale reliability and validity
In developing the scales for measuring these constructs, this paper applied the Cronbach
alpha to assess the reliability (Cronbach, 1951), and used factor analysis to ensure the con-
struct validity. The coefficient alphas for the product quality, service quality, contextual
experience, perceived value, preference and intention are 0.8, 0.9, 0.6, 0.9, 0.8 and 0.9
Total Quality Management 1279
Table 1. Factor analysis with varimax rotation.
Factor
Item 1 2 3 4
Product quality
1. I recognise that the quality of coffee is good in Starbucks. 0.843
2. I recognise that the taste of coffee is good in Starbucks. 0.722
3. I recognise that the purity of coffee is good in Starbucks. 0.773
Service quality
4. I recognise that the service is good in Starbucks. 0.860
5. I recognise that Starbucks does its best to satisfy me. 0.867
6. I recognise that I am satisfied with service provided by 0.903
Starbucks.
Contextual (memorable) experience
7. I recognise that the consuming experience in Starbucks 0.565
gives me a good memory.
8. I recognise that I am impressed with the decoration of 0.612
Starbucks.
9. I recognise that the impression of other customers in 0.807
Starbucks is good.
Value, preference, intention
10. It’s valuable to consume in Starbucks. 0.717
11. It’s superb to consume in Starbucks. 0.783
12. I like to consume coffee in Starbucks. 0.780
13. I am glad to consume coffee in Starbucks. 0.690
14. I intend to consume coffee again in the future. 0.798
15. I am willing to be a loyal consumer in the future. 0.768
Eigenvalues 4.956 1.904 1.223 1.044
Cumulative percentage of variance. 41.304 57.169 67.360 76.059
respectively. Since the Cronbach alpha values were above the conventional level (Nunnally,
1967), the scales for those constructs were deemed to exhibit adequate reliability.
The results of factor analysis with varimax rotation ensured that product quality,
service quality and experience quality are three distinct constructs with eigenvalue
greater than unity (Table 1). The loadings of all the items in each scale were accepted,
as they were greater than 0.5 (Hair et al., 1998). Because of the items of value, preference,
and intention are grouped as factor 1, caution should be exercised when interpreting the
results for these variables.
Correlation analysis
The first-order correlation coefficients are depicted in Table 2. The results support all the
bivariable hypotheses 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b and 2c. All the product quality, service satisfaction
and contextual experience were positively correlated to customers’ perceived value, and
the perceived value was further positively correlated to preferences. Then preference
was positively correlated to intention.
Hypothesised regression model 1: overall data
Multiple regression instead of SEM was used to perform path analyses because of an
insufficient sample size. Figure 3 presents the results of multiple regression analysis.
The standardised path coefficients were calculated. The multicollinearity is ruled out
1280 H. Yu and W. Fang
Table 2. Correlation analysis.
Product Service Contextual Customer
Constructs quality quality experience value Preferences Intention
Product quality 1
Service quality 0.25 1
Contextual 0.39 0.33 1
experience
Perceived 0.41 0.33 0.36 1
value
Attitudes 0.51 0.40 0.35 0.59 1
Intention 0.54 0.37 0.29 0.56 0.72 1
Note: p , 0.01, p , 0.001.
because the correlations between independent variables are all less than 0.8 (Asher, 1983;
Emory & Cooper, 1991) and the VIF (variance inflation factor) are all less than 10 (Neter
& Kutner, 1990).
According to Figure 3, all the product quality, service satisfaction and contextual
experience are good predictors of customer perceived value. However, according to the
standardised beta coefficients, the contribution of product quality (b ¼ 0.291 ,
p , 0.001) to the perceived value is more than the contributions of service (b ¼ 0.196 ,
p , 0.05) and experience (b ¼ 0.178 , p , 0.05). This finding may not be consistent
with the experience economy, which proposed that the experience would be the major
contributor to the customer’s value. Further analyses need to be made accordingly.
Hypothesised regression model 2: income-level segmentation
This study further hypothesises, based on Maslow’s theory, that the impact of product
quality, service quality, and contextual experience on perceived value would be different
over samples with different income-levels. Figures 4(a) and 4(b) are the results of
regression analyses with non-significant paths shown by dotted lines. The results reveal
that, in the lower-income group (Figure 4(a)), perceived value is mainly determined
by perceived product quality (b ¼ 0.352 , p , 0.001). On the contrary, in the
higher-income group (Figure 4(b)), the direct influence from product quality to perceived
Figure 3. Regression model for overall data.
p , 0.05; p , 0.001.
Total Quality Management 1281
Figure 4. (a) Regression models for the lower-income group.
p , 0.001.
(b) Regression models for the higher-income group.
p , 0.001.
value does not exist. Instead, perceived value can be predicted only by perceived service
satisfaction (b ¼ 0.427 ) and contextual experience (b ¼ 0.439 ), which is supported
by the progression model of economic value proposed by Pine and Gilmore (1999).
This is also consistent with Maslow’s assumption that low-income people primarily have
to fulfill the basic needs such as product quality. When they are getting richer, they are
willing to pay for the higher hierarchy of needs, such as service and contextual experience.
Hypothesised regression model 3: frequency-level segmentation
The recent theories of customer relationship management generally propose that business
should treat customers differently according to the contributions of customers. This study
further hypothesises that the regression model on perceived value would be different over
samples with different frequency-levels of consumption. Figures 5(a) and 5(b) are the
results of regression analyses with non-significant paths in dotted lines.
For those who drink coffee in Starbucks at least once a month, who are ranked in the
top 15% and recognised as higher frequency-level customers, the regression results are
shown in Figure 5(a). Perceived value is directly determined by contextual experience
only (b ¼ 0.444 ). It may be interpreted that higher consumption frequency customers
visit Starbucks mainly because of the contextual experience.
1282 H. Yu and W. Fang
Figure 5. (a) Regression model for the higher consumption frequency group.
p , 0.05; p , 0.001.
(b) Regression model for the lower consumption frequency group.
p , 0.001.
For those who drink coffee in Starbucks less than once a month, the regression results
are shown in Figure 5(b). Very interestingly, the contextual experience seems to be not a
determinant any more of the perceived value. On the contrary, perceived value is mainly
determined by perceived product quality.
Qualitative analysis
Open questions were asked to describe one to three characteristics one likes and dislikes
most while consuming in Starbucks. The qualitative data were analysed independently by
two decoders with peer review to get common consensus, and several categories were
identified. The count and percentage rank of each characteristic category are presented
in Table 3. The result shows that people like the contextual experience most, which is
consistent with the experience economy. Price, contextual experience and product are
the top three most disliked items accordingly.
In general, contextual experience is the frequently mentioned characteristics that
people like or dislike. The liked contextual experiences are decoration, atmosphere of
relaxation and comfort; and the disliked items are that the place is too crowded, noisy
and has limited space. In future study, the negative effects of experience should be
addressed (Lane & Keaveney, 2005). By any means, the contextual experience has
become an important issue for retailers.
Total Quality Management 1283
Table 3. Open question analysis.
Like Dislike
Frequency % (Rank) Frequency % (Rank)
Contextual experience 191 48%(1) 93 30%(2)
Product quality 91 23%(2) 62 20%(3)
Service quality 54 14%(3) 30 10%(4)
Pricing 3 1%(6) 121 39%(1)
Location 36 9%(4) 4 1%(5)
Branding 25 7%(5) 2 0%(6)
Total 400 312
Note: Figures in bold typeface refer to the top three most liked/disliked items.
Discussion and implications
This study has provided some valuable empirical insights into the determinants of people’s
perceived value. Pine and Gilmore’s framework of the experience economy generally
assumes experience is a major contributor, compared with product and service, to a custo-
mer’s perceived value. The empirical results of this study indicate that it is not always true.
Instead, it depends on the segmentation on which the retailers focus. This study reveals
many interesting insights.
First, in general, the product, service and contextual experience are all important in
determining people’s value perceptions, and, further, the attitude and intention to continue
shopping.
Second, while all the hypothesised binary relationships (H1a – b, H2a– c) between
research variables are statistically significant, the multiple regression analyses reveal
that those relationships proposed by Pine and Gilmore might be spurious in different
customer segments. For instance, to the lower-income customers, the empirical results
indicate that perceived value is mainly influenced by product quality. On the contrary,
customers with higher income, the contextual experience and service become the main
direct determinants of perceived value. This finding is also consistent with the assumption
of Maslow’s theory of needs.
Third, the determinants of perceived value are different between higher frequent
customers and lower frequent customers. The former one’s value is mainly determined
by contextual experience. However, for the customers with lower consumption frequency,
they still value product quality more than service and contextual experience.
Fourth, as a practical implication, the concept of one-to-one marketing proposes that
the customers are not the same, and the strategies to acquire new customers and to
retain them are also different. The relative importance of contextual experience, service
quality, and product quality across income and frequency levels provides empirical
evidence of this idea. For instance, the contextual experience playing a major determinant
of perceived value both for higher-income and higher-frequency customers is strategically
important for retailers to retain valuable customers. However, to acquire new customers,
product quality still plays a major role in certain markets.
Finally, the importance of different needs can change over time. When income is rela-
tively low, consumers demand more on product quality. After income reaches a certain
level, experience grows as an important value determinant. Very often, the difference
between highly profitable retailers and less profitable ones lies in the changing profiles
1284 H. Yu and W. Fang
of their customers. Even so, stores still have to note that the experience is in fact built upon
the good quality of products and services.
Limitations and future research
Although this paper reveals some interesting findings, there are still several limitations.
First, the experience investigated in this study is contextual experience only. There
might be many other kinds of experiences, such as participation, control, familiarity and
hedonic experiences (Chang, 2005; Fitzmaurice, 2005; Soderlund, 2002) which can con-
tribute to the value perceptions. In addition, consumers may not look for memorable
experiences in all situations. For instance, we may occasionally want to experience the
ambience in Starbucks, but our daily coffee cravings are perfectly well-served by our
own coffee machine or by fast-food places (Poulsson & Kale, 2004). Future studies
may also investigate more potential factors determining perceived value, such as price,
location and branding as suggested from the qualitative data in this study. As suggested
by van der Spiegel et al. (2006), firms have to decide what activities should be
implemented that are most suitable for their specific situation. In addition, as the qualitat-
ive data reveal, this calls for a closer examination on both positive and negative contextual
experiences since they are both stated by customers in the top liked and disliked items.
Secondly, the generalisation of the empirical evidence is also limited by the use of
student samples. However, realising the consistent results with TRA, Maslow’s theory
and one-to-one marketing enhances our confidence in the findings obtained.
In conclusion, this study not only provides a further understanding into the use of the
experience economy framework, it also offers an impetus to future research.
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