A Customer-Oriented Approach for Determining Market Structures

A framework for market analysis based on customer perceptions of substitutability-in-use is presented. An empirical application in the financial/banking services market is used to illustrate that when product preferences are dependent on the use/consumption context (especially relevant when products have multiple uses), situational variables can help predictive ability, and hierarchical clusters (requiring exclusive group membership) may be misleading. Additionally, it is shown that interactions among situation, product, and person factors may be more managerially meaningful than the main effects.