The attitude of consumers towards “Made in Italy” products. An empirical analysis among Italian customers

The paper is part of a wider research aimed at studying consumer’s attitude towards “Made in Italy” products through empirical investigation. The research questions addressed are: 1) Does recognition in terms of the qualitative characterization of “Made in Italy” products exist? And if yes, 2) Is there a willingness to pay, in quantitative terms, a premium price for such products? From a theoretical standpoint, the research tries to fill a gap in the literature, since works which combines the “made in” characteristic with a measured “willingness to pay” are neither conventional nor numerous. The specific purpose of this contribution is to analyze the relationship between the purchase of “Made in Italy” products, the recognition of the quality and the willingness to pay a premium price by Italian consumers, reporting the results of an empirical research. The survey involved a total of 315 Italian consumers and three are the merceological sectors analized: food, fashion and mechanical automation. The results confirm the presence of a propensity to purchase "Made in Italy" products, an attitude that does not seem bound to irrational consumer behavior. The "Made in Italy" is confirmed as a conceptual category consolidated in the minds of consumers, since there is a clear recognition for these products in terms of qualitative characterization. There is a significant and important willingness to pay a premium price for the three sectors analyzed, even if the premium price is not homogeneous: although the measures are mostly between 10 and 30%, higher values refer to products of the food sector. These and other results of the research (which have to be confirmed and deepened with further empirical investigations) are relevant both for the literature on the subject and as indications for public policies and for the strategies of the companies operating in the examined sectors.