Product quality

Product quality
See also
Low cost strategy Brand Market niche strategy Perceived quality Customer perception Prestige products Importance of brand Augmented product Special offering

The product quality means a level of product excellence and its ability to meet customer needs. This is a group of functional attributes, both tangible (e.g., durability) and emotional (e.g. compliance with the current fashion) that affect the degree of consumer satisfaction of specific needs associated with the purchase of the product.

As a rule, when the buyer compares the product with other competing products on the market, he refers to the relative quality of the product and the benefits of the choice of the tender. Purchasers of products, especially those with a high price, are sometimes willing to pay more for a product with better quality. The company, however, shouldn't try to increase the quality of the offered product too much above customer's needs, because a decreasing number of buyers willing to pay a high price may cause a decline in profitability despite increasing quality. Most sensible solution is optimization product quality and adaptation of production and marketing costs to market expectations, as well as competitors offer, so as to reach the level of utility value, for which the consumer is willing to pay a price most favorable to the producer.

Characteristics of product quality

The quality of the product consists of characteristics, such as:

• Compliance with the standards - the extent to which functional characteristics of the product are similar to the target standard,
• Durability - the time at which the product retains its useful properties,
• Reliability - the probability that the product during certain time and under certain conditions won't spoil,
• Operational safety,
• Ease of repair,
• Compliance with fashion,
• Compliance with the measures of social prestige.

See also:

• Extended description of quality approach in article: Quality and Lean manufacturing.
• Nicosia model of consumer behaviour
• Howard Sheth model of consumer behaviour
• EBK model

References

• Dhillon B.S. (2004) Reliability, Quality, and Safety for Engineers, CRC Press

Author: Szymon Ogrodnik