Product Heterogeneity

What it measures

The scale measures how much a customer perceives a firm's pricing or offerings as variable across different people, rather than fixed and standardized for everyone. Items assess whether prices or terms are seen as identical for all customers or individually adapted, developed in research on how price negotiation shapes customers' aspirations in service contexts.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

Scale items

• is the same for every customer / can vary from customer to customer
• is identical for every customer / is different for every customer
• is strongly adapted to individual customers.
• is always the same / fluctuates

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Alavi et al. (2020) used two versions of this scale — a mixed semantic-differential/Likert version and an all-semantic-differential version — across two MTurk studies. Reliability ranged from acceptable to strong (α = .70–.91). AVEs of .62 and .78 were reported for the two versions, offering some indirect support for validity. The reason for switching one item between versions isn't explained by the authors.

Citation

Alavi, S., Habel, J., Schwenke, M., & Schmitz, C. (2020). Price Negotiating for Services: Elucidating the Ambivalent Effects on Customers’ Negotiation Aspirations. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(2), 165-185.

Keywords