The impact of services versus goods on consumers’ assessment of perceived risk and variability

An experiment was designed to examine the differences in perceived risk and variability between services and goods. It was proposed that there is a continuous range of products rather than a simple, categorical dichotomy between goods and services and that, premised on consumer perceptions, products can be meaningfully arrayed to reflect important marketing-purchase differences. In a controlled experiment in which product stimuli were objectively placed along a goods-service continuum, data from consumers were collected focusing on 6 types of perceived risk and variability. The results indicate that services evoke heightened risk and product variability perceptions. The data suggest a prolonged adoption and diffusion process for services and implicitly point to a need for marketing activities specifically intended to reduce risk. Because of consumer perceptions of higher variability associated with services, a marketing mix strategy for services demands special attention to increased product uniformity.