Analysis of Consumer Preferences for Cosmetic Essence-for-Men via Choice-Based Conjoint with New Design of Choice Sets

The sales volume of men's cosmetics has drastically increased in Korea. In recent years, men's needs for cosmetics have been diversified and the consumer demand for functional cosmetics has greatly risen. In particular, male consumers have become more interested in essence product that is a light and concentrated treatment to correct skin problems. This research analyzes consumer preferences for essence-for-men through the use of choice-based conjoint analysis. This approach is adopted since the task of respondents to choose the most preferred option from several alternatives closely mimics actual marketplace purchasing behavior by consumers. New technique for the construction of choice sets is suggested based on the balanced incomplete block design, to accommodate a larger number of product profiles. The proposed design for choice sets is balanced and provides a tool to filter the contradictory choices. Conjoint analyses are performed to assess the relative importance of attributes and identify the most preferred profile of essence-for-men with respect to attributes such as emphasized function, price, type of content, and design of container. Some differences are indicated in the analysis results between age brackets as well as between groups classified by the amount of fashion item expenditures.