Scale library · Consumer behavior
Price and value consciousness: Lichtenstein et al. (1993)
Lichtenstein, Ridgway and Netemeyer (1993) built a set of scales for consumers' price perceptions, of which price consciousness and value consciousness are the most used. Price consciousness is the degree to which a consumer focuses exclusively on paying low prices; value consciousness is concern for the price paid relative to the quality received. The original study surveyed US grocery shoppers. The scales suit theses on deal hunting, discount buying on e-commerce marketplaces and choosing supermarket private labels.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: Price Consciousness & Value Consciousness
- Constructs: 2
- Items: 12 (4 reverse-coded)
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Price Consciousness (PC, 5 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| PC1 (R) | I am not willing to go to extra effort to find lower prices. | Yes |
| PC2 | I will grocery shop at more than one store to take advantage of low prices. | No |
| PC3 (R) | The money saved by finding low prices is usually not worth the time and effort. | Yes |
| PC4 (R) | I would never shop at more than one store to find low prices. | Yes |
| PC5 (R) | The time it takes to find low prices is usually not worth the effort. | Yes |
Value Consciousness (VC, 7 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| VC1 | I am very concerned about low prices, but I am equally concerned about product quality. | No |
| VC2 | When grocery shopping, I compare the prices of different brands to be sure I get the best value for the money. | No |
| VC3 | When purchasing a product, I always try to maximize the quality I get for the money I spend. | No |
| VC4 | When I buy products, I like to be sure that I am getting my money's worth. | No |
| VC5 | I generally shop around for lower prices on products, but they still must meet certain quality requirements before I will buy them. | No |
| VC6 | When I shop, I usually compare the "price per ounce" information for brands I normally buy. | No |
| VC7 | I always check prices at the grocery store to be sure I get the best value for the money I spend. | No |
Response scale
5- or 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree … 5/7 = Strongly agree). Higher scores mean stronger price or value consciousness (after reverse-coding the reverse-worded items).
Recoding reverse-coded items: 1–5 scale: new score = 1 + 5 − score = 6 − score; 1–7 scale: new score = 1 + 7 − score = 8 − score.
Licence and permission
The items are published in an academic article and widely used in research. Cite the original article; no permission is needed for non-commercial academic use.
Sources (APA 7)
- Lichtenstein, D. R., Ridgway, N. M., & Netemeyer, R. G. (1993). Price perceptions and consumer shopping behavior: A field study. Journal of Marketing Research, 30(2), 234–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379303000208
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.