K.U.N.S.T.

• How does information treatment affect consumers’ willingness to pay for seaweed-based biodegradable packaging across different urban student populations, and what factors limit their willingness to pay a price premium?

Methodology

We used a dual-methodology to understand consumer perceptions and their willingness-to-pay (WTP) before and after information treatment. On one side, an online survey was conducted in the student population of selected cities with different levels of affect by the plastic crisis. These cities are Lima, Istanbul, Cluj-Napoca, and Munich. In this survey, the factors affecting purchasing decision, previous knowledge and the WTP before and after information treatment were analyzed. This was complemented by an in-person experiment in Munich. In this experiment, the WTP was analyzed in an in-person setting with direct financial implications. The participants also had the opportunity to interact with seaweed-based packing and compare it to plastic packaging.

Results

Our results showed that information treatment increases the WTP in some cities, especially if the previous awareness was low. It was also shown, that price and quality of a product remain the main drivers behind purchasing decisions with over 90% of participants selecting those as important across all cities. On the other hand, the social and environmental responsibilities were not as important with under 36% of participants considering them as important. In Cluj-Napoca the environmental responsibility dropped to 12%. Finally, a higher average price premium was paid the in-person experiment. Nonetheless, there seemed to be a limit at around 10% of the price with few people willing to pay more than that. Overall, the consumers encountered during the experiment were curious and interacted with the packaging. As a consequence, it is assumed this information impacted their decision.