▶ Your Answer :
In the lecture, the professor claims that the American
wood companies will eventually seek for ecocertification for their wood
products by refuting all three points made in the reading.
First, the professor claims that the consumers may
distinguish the advertisement of the company itself and the certification by an
independent agency. Moreover, as American has more confidence in
internationally reliable agency, they would be more favorable to the
ecocertificate. This contradicts the assertion made in the reading that American
has no trust in advertisements such as ecocertificate due largely to the
pervasiveness of advertisements.
Second, the professor controverts the claims in the
reading that price is the only determining factor of consumer choice, by stating
that consumers do care on other factors than price when the price difference is
small. To be specific, if the price difference is less than 5%, as in the case
of the wood products with and without ecocertification, the consumers tend to
consider other factors than price. Moreover, as more consumers place higher
value on preserving environment, the professor claims that the consumers will
give more credit on such factors. This casts doubt on the reading’s claim that expensive wood price resulted
from the examination fee for the ecocertification, which is passed to
consumers, will prohibits the consumers to buy the products with
ecocertification.
Third, the professor challenges the point made in the
reading that American wood companies serve domestic customers so that they care
less about the international standards. In order to refute the claim, the
professor states that the American wood companies will eventually introduce the
certification not because of foreign consumers but because of foreign
competitors. He adds that if the companies are slow in adopting the
ecocertificate, the consumers who are favorable to the certificate may revert
to foreign companies, which will result in lose in the share of American
company’s domestic
market. |