Do consumers really care about whether companies are ethical when they decide to patronize them? Or are other attributes (such as brand loyalty, price, convenience, assortment, etc.) so important to consumers that they ignore ethical issues when making a purchase decision?
As reported by Emarketer, Mintel and Lightspeed GMI recently conducted a large study on this topic. Companies should pay attention to and behave appropriately with regard to the findings:
“Consumers might not reward a company they believe is ethical, but many are likely to punish a company they perceive to be unethical, according to a 2015 study. Mintel and Lightspeed GMI surveyed 2,000 U.S. adult Internet users. More than half of respondents said they stop buying products when they believe a company is unethical. Over one-third of Internet users said they would tell others and 26% of respondents would do neither of those things.”
Click the chart to read more about the ethics study.
People nowadays are taking unethical behavior more serious than before. Last year, Volkswagen used “defeat devices” to cheat the emission test. After the scandal, it caused severely sales decline around the world. In the United States, its sales dropped about 25% in November. The issue of Volkswagen strongly supported the idea that unethical behavior would have negative impact on customers’ behavior.