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One way consumers can evaluate alternatives is to identify important attributes

ID: 391453 • Letter: O

Question

One way consumers can evaluate alternatives is to identify important attributes and assess how purchase alternatives perform on those attributes. Consider the purchase of a tablet. Each attribute is given a weight to reflect its level of importance to that consumer. Then the consumer evaluates each alternative on each attribute (higher ratings indicate higher performance). A score can be calculated for each brand by multiplying the importance weight for each attribute by the brand's score on that attribute. These weighted scores are then summed to determine the score for that brand. Calculate the weighted scores for all brands. Which brand would this consumer likely choose?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Importance

Alternative Brands

Attributes

Weight

A

B

C

Screen size

0.1

6

2

3

Price

0.4

3

2

6

Operating System

0.2

4

6

5

Apps available

0.3

2

5

4

Importance

Alternative Brands

Attributes

Weight

A

B

C

Screen size

0.1

6

2

3

Price

0.4

3

2

6

Operating System

0.2

4

6

5

Apps available

0.3

2

5

4

Explanation / Answer

The weighted score for each brand can be calculated as the sum of the product of the weight for each attribute and the brands score on that attribute. So using this formula the total weighted score for each brand are

This consumer would likely choose brand C as it has the highest weighted score among the three brands