HOW NUTRITION-FACT INFORMATION INFLUENCES ONLINE FOOD SALES

Peng Zou,Jingwen Liu,Yixin Li 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Introduction Online shopping has become an important part of people’s daily lives. The very nature of online shopping makes it unlikely for consumers to examine products with their senses (e.g., touch, smell) as they can do in offline stores. The consumer obtains information from a variety of online sources (sellers, other buyers, and third parties) to assess a product and make a purchase decision. This variety of online information (e.g., product description, reviews and ratings) informs and persuades consumers. While sellers’ decisions comprise most information displayed on their product’s website, other information is shown because consumers have a moral, ethical, and legal “right” to know (e.g., ingredients, weight, size) (Jacoby, Speller, & Berning, 1974). Regarding the latter information, some countries (e.g., the U.S., China, Canada, the EU and India) have regulations that require pre-packaged food manufacturers to provide a nutrition-fact label and claims displaying standardized information on product packaging (Health Canada, 2010). We ask the following question to public policy makers and marketers: Should online pre-packaged food shops also need to present nutrition facts? There are two perspectives one might adopt regarding the array of information confronting online shoppers. The first perspective deals with human information processing. This position maintains that humans’ ability to assimilate and process information has finite limits during any given unit of time, and that once these limits are surpassed, behavior tends to become confused and dysfunctional (Miller, 1956; Driver & Streufert, 1969). Conceivably, such information overload might also occur in online shopping. Online shoppers often make their selections from a range of products, each with an array of information. Moreover, they make such purchase decisions within a relatively short time period. An alternative perspective is that nutrition-fact information provides key cues for consumers to assess product quality in the online marketplace. Cues can be categorized as extrinsic or intrinsic to the product (Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991; Anderson, 1981). Extrinsic cues are product-related attributes that can be altered whereas intrinsic cues are inherent to the product itself (e.g., ingredients) and cannot be easily altered (Rao & Monroe, 1988; Purohit & Srivastava, 2001). An online shopper's evaluation of a product is based upon both intrinsic and extrinsic cues. In the online shopping environment, few intrinsic cues are available to consumers and the disclosure of nutrition facts (an intrinsic product feature) can help to fill this gap. Theoretical Development The understanding of how nutrition information presentation influences online food sales is a substantial topic for both industry and academia. With the convenience of online shopping, the potential for food producers and retail stores to take their products online is enormous. eMarketer (2014) reports that online food and beverage purchases increased 15.2% in U.S. retail ecommerce sales, and that this trend will remain consistent. Online food shopping is extremely popular in China, with 92% of consumers purchasing food or beverages at least once a month (Weber Shandwick, 2014). Moreover, eMarketer (2016) reports that by 2020, one-fourth of China's online purchases will be made directly from foreign websites or from third-party platforms. Thus, it is important for other countries to learn about the Chinese market. Among these potential issues, whether nutrition-fact information affects consumer purchase decisions in the online shopping context remains unexplored. Nutrition-fact labels have proven to be useful cues for consumer purchasing decision in offline conditions (Shah, Bettman, Ubel, Keller, & Edell, 2014). However, researchers have been unable to determine the effects of nutrition information in online conditions with network virtualization (Mavlanova, Benbunan-Fich, & Koufaris, 2012) and information multiplicity. In addition, the nutrition information disclosed by online sellers may cue consumers to acquire healthy food. Previous research has found that when information pertaining to a food’s nutritional content is provided, less-healthy food tastes better (Raghunathan, Naylor, & Hoyer, 2006). This literature raises the issue of whether nutrition information is more effective for healthy or unhealthy products. In summary, we investigate the effect of nutrition-fact information on online food shopping. The research questions address: (1) whether and how nutrition-fact information influences food sales in online conditions; (2) how nutrition-fact information interacts with other online extrinsic cues (i.e., word of mouth and historical sales); and (3) whether nutrition-fact information is more effective for healthy or unhealthy products. Research Design We then address these issues using panel data collected from Taobao.com (the largest online shopping platform in China). We selected 45 days as our study period, and the sample comprised 273 sellers. In addition, we conduct an experiment using an eye-tracking system to test the necessity and helpfulness of nutrition-fact information. Results and Conclusion The results show that the nutrition-fact information has a significant impact on sales. More specifically, consumers are more likely to choose sellers with the nutrition-fact information, and the healthy (unhealthy) food with nutrition-fact information tends to attract more (fewer) purchase. In addition, our results reveal some interesting interactions between nutrition-fact information and other cues. Specifically, WOM and historical sales strengthen the sales impact of nutrition-fact information. Our eye-tracking experiment leads to several interesting results. First, consumers pay attention to nutrition-fact information and spend considerable time reading it. Second, a long fixation length on nutrition-fact information would reasonably increase sales. This study makes several academic contributions. First, we extend the topic of nutrition information to an e-commerce context. Second, this is one of the first studies to examine the role of nutrition-fact information from an experimental perspective. Third, we supplement the findings of previous studies on the role of food type. This study also provides several practical implications. First, governments could require online sellers to reveal nutrition information in a truthful and detailed manner at the point of sale. In addition, labeling policies not only increase nutrition awareness and protect consumers, but they can also offer a profitable path for marketers. Second, sellers should design nutrition information and other cues strategies jointly. Third, compared with unhealthy food, nutrition-fact information is more effective for the purchase of healthy food. Sellers might be encouraged by this trend and consider more strategies to display nutrition-fact information on healthy food.

Body action impacts the stability of nanomedicine tools in the drug delivery

Peng Zou,Wei Zhao,Jinpeng Dong,Yinyin Cao Techno-Press 2023 Advances in nano research Vol.14 No.3

Muscle strength and hypertrophy are equivalent when low-intensity resistance exercise is paired with blood flow restriction. This paper deals with the impact of physical exercise in the form of body activities on drug delivery using nanodevices. The body's actions impact the blood flow since the nano drug delivery devices are released into the bloodstream, and physical exercise and all the activities that change the blood flow influence the stability of these nanodevices. The nanodevice for the drug delivery purpose is modeled via nonuniform tube structures based on the high-order beam theory along with the nonlocal strain gradient theory. The nanodevice is made by a central nanomotor as well as two nanoblade in the form of truncated conical nanotubes carrying the nanomedicine. The mathematical simulation of rotating nanodevices is numerically solved, and the effect of various parameters on the stability of nanodevices has been studied in detail after the validation study.

INVESTOR RESPONSE TO FOOD NUTRITION LABELING REGULATION IN CHINA

Peng Zou,Qiaolian Cheng,Guofeng Li,Yan Liu 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Product labels are one way for advertisers to provide information to purchasers on product quality (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Label policies have been issued to promote information disclosure on food products in some developed countries. Recent years have also seen increasing attempts to promote healthy eating in emerging markets. In China, nutrition labels became mandatory under the nutrition labeling acts. The laws require nutrition information to be presented at the point of purchase as well as in establishments where food is prepared or consumed. Additionally, similar actions were taken by India (India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2011), Mercosur members and in South Africa (Brazilian Ministry of Health, 2012; Institute of Food Technologists [IFT], 2011). While nutritional labeling has received a lot of attention both in academia and from the press, some key gaps remain in the nutrition labeling literature. First, a great deal of marketing research has focused on consumer responses (e.g., Balasubramanian & Cole, 2002; Hieke & Taylor, 2012; Ippolito & Mathios, 1995; Parker & Lehmann, 2014; Shah, Bettman, Ubel, Keller, & Edell, 2014) and firm responses (e.g., Moorman 1998; Moorman, Du, & Mela, 2005; Moorman, Ferraro, & Huber, 2012) to nutrition labeling laws. Although stock market investors express greater interest in information about nutrition issues that can be integrated into financial analyses (Global Access to Nutrition Index [ATNI] Investor Statement, 2013), the issue of how standardized information requirements affect investors’ responses in financial markets has been understudied. As used here, standardized product-information disclosure refers to a requirement to present facts about firms’ offerings in a common format using uniform metrics (Moorman et al. 2012). Understanding the extent to which investors consider product information-disclosure polices when they make investment decisions is important because a company’s financial health is not only the ultimate measure for the success or failure of any strategic initiative (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2009), but also one of the most important measures of public policy effectiveness (Joshi & Hanssens, 2010; Srinivasan & Hanssens, 2009; Schwert, 1981). Moreover, urgent concerns have spilled over from the product market to the financial market (Chen, Ganesan, & Liu, 2009) due to the enormous economic costs and damage to firms’ reputations in product-harm crises (e. g., melamine contamination in several Chinese brands of infant milk powder) (Ngo, 2014). Another gap in the literature is how nutritional-labeling requirements affect emerging markets. In contrast to the situation in long-developed countries, emerging markets are subject to different pressures for food marketers and thus a distinctive environment surrounds the regulation of food product labeling. In China, food safety and quality is considered an urgent concern, and the issue has forced regulators and companies to take action (Yan, 2008). Unlike mature stock markets, the majority of investors in China are individuals (Chen, Li, & Shi, 2010). The Chinese markets are under-regulated and deficient in gathering and disseminating information to private or public organizations, and it is difficult for listed firms with insufficient records to form reputations (Singh et al., 2005). As a result, information asymmetry is accentuated and imperfect signals released from firms highly impact investor decisions. Thus, examining the effectiveness of labeling requirements in developing economies is important as is comparing these results to those found in more developed countries. Despite the importance of the issue in emerging markets, empirical work for investigating investor response to the public policy of nutrition labeling (Ghani, & Childs, 1999) or firms’ nutrition claim strategies (Cao & Yan, 2016) has been restricted in developed markets (e.g., the U.S.). Little is understood the changes in corporate financial performance because of regulations requiring product information disclosure in emerging markets. As a result of the pressures for consumer protection and regulation, it is increasingly important for policy makers to be able to understand the financial consequences of such regulation because of information disclosure policies (Moorman et al., 2005). Thus, an additional contribution of this study is to help better inform the policy debate in emerging markets. To fill these research gaps, we investigated the influence of the influx of standardized product information on the stock market. Specifically, we conducted an event study to examine the effect on firms’ stock values from the issuance of the food nutrition label acts (FNLAs) in China, a fast-growing emerging market. The acts require food manufacturers to provide standardized nutritional information on pre-packaged food labels. This study contributes to the marketing literature on the financial impact of regulation in emerging markets. In China, on the day the FNLA was issued, they were associated with positive abnormal stock returns of related firms. This result is contrary to the study by Ghani and Childs (1999) that reported that the NLEA passage showed a negative impact on firms’ stock prices. Second, the financial value from the issuance of regulations was strengthened by three marketing leverages—advertising, donations, and R&D. Finally, although Moorman et al. argued that the NLEA increased the number of small-share firms exiting the U.S. market (Moorman et al., 2005), we found that in the short term, large firms benefited less than small firms from product information disclosure in China’s stock market. These findings provide empirical evidence that regulatory controls create changes in shareholder wealth and provide an assessment of the financial market’s perceptions regarding the role of mandatory product- information disclosure in future corporate growth. In addition, evidence of the effects of regulatory changes on wealth is of significant value to policymakers and market participants as they evaluate the benefits and costs of information disclosure in emerging markets.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SHARING PLATFORM SOCIALIZATION ON THE CONSUMERS’ INTENTION TO PARTICIPATE - TRUST AS A MEDIATOR

Peng Zou,Di Huo,Yixin Li 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Introduction In order to solve the information asymmetry and make full use of resources (unused goods, spare capacity and so on), the sharing economy, which based on the application of mobile internet technology and focused on the consumption of the right to use, is developing rapidly. Lack of trust is considered to be one of the important problems hindering the development of sharing economy. M?hlmann (2015) said that trust is a fundamental determinant of sharing economy development and ensuring shared satisfaction. At present, sharing economy enterprises have established product evaluation system and docked a third party credit rating system (i.e. Zhima Credit) to promote consumers’ trust. However, with most enterprises are becoming more and more consistent in evaluation and credit rating system, there is a new problem emerged: how to further deepen consumers’ trust in order to promote consumers’ intention to participate continuously (Zucker, 1986; Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Granovetter (1985) mentioned that trust is the product of social relationships. Botsman and Rogers (2011) made it clear that social networks play an important role in building trust in sharing economy. And people are always more willing to accept the opinions of people who have social relations with them (Lu, Zhao, & Wang, 2010). Hence, with the feature of participant of everyone in sharing economy, it is necessary to further strengthen consumers’ trust through the social interaction among consumers and between consumers and sharing platforms. Theoretical Development Sharing economy is based on LBS and other new technologies to realize the matching of supply and demand information across time and space. And to a certain extent, it solves the problem of information asymmetry in the era of e-commerce. Yet consumer have new requirements for product information. For example, consumers are more concerned about whether the utility of products and services can meet their needs (i.e. some consumers are more concerned about when to reach their destination than the performance of the car). But it is difficult for company to understand each everyone of consumers’ utility preference and publish product utility information based on these preferences (Xie & Gerstner, 2007). Because this kind of utility preference has the characteristic of timeliness and personalization. Therefore, consumers’ perceived uncertainty about the utility of the product will also affect the consumers’ trust. In summary, we then address these research questions:(1) can the promotion of trust between consumers and sharing platforms be achieved through the socializing of sharing platforms and then affect consumers’ intention to participate continuously; (2) if so, which type of privacy protection method and social information can promote consumer trust; and (3) does the impact of sharing platform socialization on consumer trust vary according to consumers’ concerns about the perceived utility uncertainty of the product. Research Design We then address these issues using experiment data. The first experiment was a 2 (social media: have, not have) x 2 (individual trust propensity: trust, not trust) between-subject design on the intention to trust sharing platform and participant continuously. Perceived utility uncertainty was added to this design as a moderator. Moreover, the second experiment was a 2 (social information type: hedonic, utilitarian) x 2 (degree of privacy protection: week, strong) between-subject design on the intention to trust sharing platform. Our scales come from existing scales and optimize it according to the characteristics of sharing economy (Schneider, 1999; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; McKnight, Choudhury, & Kacmar, 2002). Results and Conclusion The results of the first experiment show that whether or not the social platform has no significant impact on the consumer trust if the individual tends to trust others. And for individuals who tends to do not trust others, they are more likely to trust socialized sharing platforms. The higher the consumer perceived utility uncertainty is, the higher (lower) trust of the consumer platform in the socialized (not socialized) sharing platform. For the second experiment results, in the context of sharing economy, the utilitarian information has a greater positive impact on the consumer trust than the hedonic information. In addition, the stronger the privacy protection of sharing platforms, the higher the trust of consumes. This study makes several academic contributions. First, we extend the topic of socialization to sharing economy context. Second, we add the perceived utility uncertainty as a moderator, and supplement the role of perceived uncertainty. This research also provides several practical implications. First, sharing platform can promote their consumers’ trust by establishing their own social platform. This platform can be used as a differentiated competitive strategy for sharing platform. Second, sharing platform should guide consumers to share utilitarian information (i.e. weather for specific place or real time traffic) to improve consumer satisfaction. Third, sharing platform can access consumer preference information through this social platform for further product development and classification.

INVESTOR RESPONSE TO FOOD NUTRITION LABELING REGUALTION IN CHINA

Peng Zou,Qiaolian Cheng,Yixin Li,Yan Liu 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2020 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2020 No.11

Product labels are one way for advertisers to provide information to purchasers on product quality (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Label policies have been issued to promote information disclosure on food products in some developed countries. Recent years have also seen increasing attempts to promote healthy eating in emerging markets. In China, nutrition labels became mandatory under the nutrition labeling acts. The laws require nutrition information to be presented at the point of purchase as well as in establishments where food is prepared or consumed. Additionally, similar actions were taken by India (India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2011), Mercosur members and in South Africa (Brazilian Ministry of Health, 2012; Institute of Food Technologists [IFT], 2011).

HOW CHINESE FIRMS RESPONSE TO FOOD NUTRITION LABEL REGULATION

Peng Zou,Yan Liu 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

Recent decades have seen a number of policies have been launched to promote information disclosure on food products marketed in developed countries. There has also been increasing efforts to promote healthy eating in developing economies (Cowburn & Stockley 2005). A good example appears in China, where, in an effort to improve health education, nutrition labels became mandatory under the Nutrition Labeling Act (NLA) since 2013. Additionally, food labeling regulations were issued by India, Mercosur members and South Africa. While nutritional labeling has received a lot of attention both in academia and from the press, there are some key gaps in the nutrition labeling literature. One issue of how standardized information requirements affect firm marketing responses (e.g., advertising levels. R&D investment, and corporate social responsibility programs) and performance has been understudied. Another clear gap in the literature is how nutritional labeling requirements affect developing economies.

HOW EMERGING MARKET INVESTORS VALUE COMPETITORS’ BRAND EQUITY: A STUDY ON THE SPILLOVER OF BRAND CRISIS IN CHINA’S FINANCIAL MARKET

Peng Zou,Guofeng Li 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.7

HOW EMERGING MARKET INVESTORS VALUE COMPETITORS’ BRAND EQUITY : A STUDY ON THE SPILLOVER OF BRAND CRISIS IN CHINA’S FINANCIAL MARKET

Peng Zou,Guofeng Li 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.5

Substituting oat hay or maize silage for portion of alfalfa hay affects growth performance, ruminal fermentation, and nutrient digestibility of weaned calves

Yang Zou,XinPing Zou,XiZhi Li,Gang Guo,Peng Ji,Yan Wang,ShengLi Li,YaJing Wang,ZhiJun Cao 아세아·태평양축산학회 2018 Animal Bioscience Vol.31 No.3

Objective: The impact of forage feeding strategy on growth performance, ruminal fermentation and nutrient digestibility in post-weaning calves was investigated. Methods: Forty-five female Holstein calves (body weight [BW] = 79.79±0.38 kg) were enrolled in the 35-d study at one week after weaning and randomly assigned to one of three dietary treatments. All diets were fed as total mixed ration containing 60% (dry matter [DM] basis) of basal starter feed and 40% (DM basis) of forage, but varied in composition of forage source including i) alfalfa (40% DM, AH); ii) alfalfa hay (26.7% DM)+oat hay (13.3% DM; OH); iii) alfalfa hay (26.7% DM)+corn silage (13.3% DM; WS). Results: Dry matter intake was not different among treatment groups (p>0.05). However, BW (p<0.05) and average daily gain (p<0.05) of calves fed AH and OH were greater than WS-fed calves, whereas heart girth was greater in OH-fed calves than those fed AH and WS (p<0.05). Ruminal fermentation parameters including proportion of butyric acid, acetated-to-propionate ratio, concentration of total volatile fatty acid, protozoal protein, bacterial protein, and microbial protein in rumen were the highest in OH (p<0.05) and the lowest in WS. Compared with the AH and WS, feeding oat hay to postweaning calves increased crude protein digestibility (p<0.05), and decreased duration of diarrhea (p<0.05) and fecal index (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our results suggested that partially replacing alfalfa hay with oat hay improved ruminal fermentation, nitrogen utilization, and reduced incidence of diarrhea in post-weaning dairy calves.

HOW CHINESE CONSUMERS RESPONSE TO FOOD NUTRITION CLAIM

Jingwen Liu,Peng Zou,Qingqing Lu 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

With increasing income and education, requirements to product quality are getting higher in China. Specifically, people tend to nutrition and health now. Food safety has attracted increasing attention due to its importance. The nutrition claims on packaging became one of the most important standards to decide whether to buy. A great deal of research has focused on consumer responses (e.g., Hieke and Taylor 2012; Parker & Lehmann 2014; Shah et al. 2014) to the influx of product information to markets. Topics of research included the impact on consumers’ beliefs with regards to products (Ford et al. 2005), purchasing behavior (Nikolova and Inman 2015), and information processing behavior (Moorman 1990). The diversity of consumer responses is based on consumer differences (Moorman 1990), and health- and nutrition-related (HNR) claims (Choi et al. 2013). Although a great deal of research has addressed the influence of product information disclosure on the market, these studies have focused almost exclusively on developed economies. Going forward it is very likely that emerging markets will play a more important part in corporate strategic planning, as opposed to something considered after making plans for long developed markets. Thus, the impact of market information is likely to matter more and more to those global marketers operating in emerging markets. To fill the research gaps, we investigated how the existence and forms of nutrition claims affect the purchase intention of consumers in China. We explore the moderating role of consumer’s nutrition knowledge. We combine simulation experiment and questionnaire and design two experiments: Experiment 1 is about the existence of nutrition claims, we want to know how the existence of nutrition claims affects the purchase intention of consumers. Experiment 2 which is 2(health claims Vs function claims)×2 (promotion Vs prevention) test is to find out how the claim presentation forms impact the purchase intention of consumers. In experiment 1, we required the subjects to choose one setting randomly and fill in the questionnaires according to their choices. We collected 315 effective questionnaires of experiment 1and 156 effective questionnaires of experiment 2. The results show that: (1) The existence of nutrition claims affects the purchase intention of consumers. specifically, compared with the product without health claims, consumers tend to choose the one with health claims, and compared with the product without function claims, consumers tend to choose the one with health claims.(2)Nutrition knowledge plays a positively role. Nutrition knowledge can change the effect of the existence of health claims and function claims on purchase intention.(3) Consumer trust only plays a partly moderate role. The consumer trust can increase the effect of the existence of function claims but not health claims on purchase intention.(4)The forms of nutrition claims affect consumers purchase intention. Consumers tend to choose the product with promotion claims more than the one with prevention claims.(5) Nutrition knowledge plays a positively role, it can improve the effect of the forms of health claims on purchase intention. The more nutritional knowledge does consumers comprehend, the more sensitive to the product with promotion claims they are.(6)Consumer trust also plays a positively role. The higher Consumer trust does consumers maintain, the more sensitive to the product with promotion claims they are.