Consumer preferences for energy efficient room air conditioner in Malaysia: a conjoint approach

In order to ensure the success of energy efficiency standards and labeling program, a detailed consumer analysis of the room air conditioner market should be carried out. It is essential to know what factors influence preferences for room air conditioner, so that a program can be devised to increase the market share for an energy efficient room air conditioner. Previous researchers typically have used attitude and opinion surveys to investigate consumers' perceived importance of product attributes. However, these approaches do not require consumers to trade-off among different attributes. In this study, conjoint analysis was used to analyze consumers' preferences for room air conditioners described by a set of 5 attributes, examining the relative importance as well as the trade-off among these attributes. Among all attributes, price is the most important factor in purchasing a room air conditioner. However, different consumer groups attach different relative importance to these attributes was observed.