| Summary: | 碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 國際企業學系碩士班 === 95 === Since the mid-1980s, parallel importation has become an important issue resulting from the international expansion strategy of the company (Myers & Griffith 1999). So-called parallel imports, or gray marketing, arise where a marketer imports branded product from abroad and then diverts and sells them through unauthorized channels. Most academic debates on parallel importing focus on trade mark law (Gallini & Hollis 1999、Inman 1993), price discrimination (Malueg & Schwartz, 1994) and the free-riding problem (Malueg & Schwartz 1999, Shepherd 1997, Richardson 2002). Others are focused on the nature, occurrence, and the influence of the gray marketing (Myers 1999). However, seldom paper has considered consumers’ intrinsic motivation (e.g., optimal stimulation level), exportatory behavior, and their impacts on the purchase of gray goods. This is therefore, the main motivation of this study.
In accordance with the motivation mentioned above, the research purposes of this study includes: first, to define the extension and the nature of gray market. Second, to examine the influence of “stimulating effect”on attributes of gray goods. Third, to examine the mediating role of exploratory behavior between optimal stimulating level and attribute of gray goods.
‘Experimental design’is used to our empirical study. The subjects are divided into two groups: stimulating group and non-stimulating group. Conjoint analysis and LISREL are used to test our hypotheses. The main findings are: (1)‘stimulating group’ shows stronger preference for gray goods; (2) the higher the optimal stimulating level, the stronger tendency of the exploratory behavior; (3) respondents attached to higher risk taking tenancy are likely to take the ‘type’ of a digital camera as an important attribute.
The marketing implications of the study are: (1) for the gray marketers: this empirical study has shown that ‘gray goods stimulating’ has significantly impact on consumers’ purchase intentions. Therefore, the gray marketers could use multiple channels to promote the benefits of gray goods to increase their purchase intentions. (2) For authorized agents: most of the consumers put emphasis on the product quality and after sale service, therefore, authorized agents could put their efforts on differential service, for example, free-teaching class or home fix service to segment the market. (3) For global manufacturers: previous studies show that gray goods may not harm for the profit of the manufacturers (Bolton & Bonanno 1988). However, an improper demonstration of the products or a poor after sale service may hurt the brand image established by the authorized agent and the manufacturer. Thus, the manufacturers could take the global pricing method to avoid the arbitrage by the gray marketers (Keegan, 2005).
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