Online Survey of Consumer Preferences for Poinsettia Cultivars

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Consumer preference is vital for marketing of horticultural products. The manuscript will benefit other researchers by providing a reliable method in the research area. However, the abstract is suggested to reorganized by putting the first sentence before the results. The scientific names and typical photo of the materials should be presented. And significant analysis results should be put in the tables 4-7. Finally, please correct the data listed in last two columns of tables 4 and 5, which are identical at the present form. 

Author Response

For a spelling check of the entire manuscript, we used a premium version of Grammarly, grammarly.com.

Responses to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Consumer preference is vital for marketing of horticultural products. The manuscript will benefit other researchers by providing a reliable method in the research area. However, the abstract is suggested to reorganized by putting the first sentence before the results.

Responses to item no. 1: Thank you for the suggestions. Added this sentence to the abstract.

Consumer preference is vital for the marketing of horticultural products.

2. The scientific names and typical photos of the materials should be presented.

Responses to item no. 2:  The scientific and trade names and breeders of the 20 cultivars included in the level of liking survey are listed in Appendix A.
The color photographs of one cultivar and the level of liking questions are inserted in the Methods section.

Responses to item no. 3:

The data were analyzed again in Stata using ANOVA to verify the results presented in Tables 4-7. Tables 4-7 were updated using these results.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Interesting study ... always a challenge to make some sense of responses from undefined survey groups (so, not just shoppers or students or specific age groups, etc.). I do think you evaluated the data you collected in a sensible manner, more parsing of the survey group might not be useful. I would have preferred that you had explained (perhaps with examples) how the poinsettias were presented visually, since this was done online, not in a retail store setting. Was there just one photo of each cultivar grown in each size pot? How did you visually differentiate the plants in the pot sizes ... it would be easy to confuse plant sizes/pot sizes with online photos all the same size. Clearly you got very different information and willing to purchase based on pot size, so it seems to have worked, but - I guess I'm one of those folks that just needs to actually see how it works (a link to an online demo might be good if it exists). In any case, you had a specific target set of information you wanted to obtain from an online survey and your sample size is certainly adequate (even if distribution within the group may be uneven) and the data you collected appears to support your analysis.

Author Response

For a spelling check of the entire manuscript, we used a premium version of Grammarly, grammarly.com.

Level of Liking for 20 poinsettia cultivars

The 20 poinsettia cultivars were presented in sets of two color photos. The first photo was taken from the side, while the second was taken from the top. The color photographs of one cultivar and the level of liking questions are inserted in the Methods section.

Poinsettia cultivars willingness to pay

The three poinsettia cultivars were presented in two color photos each. One photo was taken from the side, while the other was taken from the top. The color photographs of one cultivar and the willingness to pay questions are inserted in the Methods section.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

please revise your manuscript according to the following points:

Please consider renaming and rephrasing this part 'The levels of liking (LOL)'.

What was the purpose of this question? Race = race was reported in 6 options: Native American, African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Other.

Line 125: this was already stated 'There were twenty poinsettia cultivars compared' in line 122.

Line 154: More than 30 percent of the respondents reported no household income. This is quite a large percentage. It should be clarified if they do not have the income, or they didn't want to report the amount, but there was no option to rather keep it for themselves. 

If there were 792 respondents, how do you explain that non of the question received no more than 550 answers related to personal information? It is a huge discrepancy. Were they all necessary in the survey, and how do people react to such questions in similar surveys?

 

Was there any correlation between larger incomes and willingness to pay for larger pots? 

Tables 5, 6 and 7 introduce some novel cultivars not listed in figure 1 with investigated 20 cultivars. Please explain this and add information in MM section on why these were chosen and were the respondents provided with pictures. 

Lines 194 - 240 are still pure results.

The discussion section is completely omitted from this manuscript. 

Author Response

For a spelling check of the entire manuscript, we used a premium version of Grammarly, grammarly.com.

1. Please consider renaming and rephrasing this part 'The levels of liking (LOL)'.

Responses – The term level of liking is a scale from 1 to 7, measuring how much the respondents like or dislike a poinsettia cultivar. The authors have used it in different journal articles. We prefer to keep this phrase in this article. Thank you for the suggestion.

• Posadas, B.C, and J. DelPrince. 2019. Consumer Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Wreath Designs. Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station Bulletin 1227, Mississippi State, Mississippi.
• Posadas, B.C., G. Fain, C. C.H. Coker, and P.R. Knight. 2006. Consumer Survey of Selected Garden Chrysanthemum Cultivars in Mississippi.HortTechnology, 16(3):539-543.20.
  
  

 

2. What was the purpose of this question? Race = race was reported in 6 options: Native American, African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Other.

Responses - Our null hypothesis is that there are no significant differences in consumer preferences for poinsettia cultivars by respondents from different socioeconomic groups.

The variations by socioeconomic group determine the diversity or homogeneity of the sample.

3. Line 125: this was already stated 'There were twenty poinsettia cultivars compared' in line 122.

Responses - Additional information is added in this section, especially on the proportion of respondents who answered specific questions. And where this information is used in the statistical analysis.

4. Line 154: More than 30 percent of the respondents reported no household income. This is quite a large percentage. It should be clarified if they do not have the income, or they didn't want to report the amount, but there was no option to rather keep it for themselves. 

Responses – No income should cover respondents without income. No answer should include those respondents who did not want to report their income.
In the new regression equation estimated, these two groups were excluded. A new regression equation was calculated for the willingness to pay by pot size, excluding observations without income and no income reported. The new regression results are posted in Table 8.

5. If there were 792 respondents, how do you explain that none of the question received no more than 550 answers related to personal information? It is a huge discrepancy. Were they all necessary in the survey, and how do people react to such questions in similar surveys?

Responses – statistical analysis for each variable was conducted on available responses only. The observations show the exact number of respondents who answered each question.

In Table 2, the numbers of respondents who provided their levels of liking for each cultivar are shown and range from 752 to 767. However, the proportion of respondents who provided their information is less than 70%, as shown in Table 1.

The regression analysis excluded those who did not provide their personal data. Personal data are necessary to identify significant determinants of consumer preferences by socioeconomic groups.

6. Was there any correlation between larger incomes and willingness to pay for larger pots? 

Responses – the correlation between household income and willingness to pay for 8- and 10-inch pot sizes are as follows:

-0.05 to -0.03 for white,

-0.03 to -0.01 for red, and

-0.06 to -0.03 for pink poinsettias.

7. Tables 5, 6 and 7 introduce some novel cultivars not listed in figure 1 with investigated 20 cultivars. Please explain this and add information in MM section on why these were chosen and were the respondents provided with pictures. 

Responses - Poinsettia cultivars willingness to pay

The three poinsettia cultivars were presented in two color photos each. One photo was taken from the side, while the other was taken from the top. The color photographs of one cultivar and the willingness to pay questions are inserted in the Methods section.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

1. In the response to reviewer's comments, the authors misunderstood my suggestion on the item No. 1. What I mean is to put the sentences of 'An 16 online consumer preference survey was posted from Dec. 15, 2020, to Jan. 19, 2021, in the Qualtrics 17 software platform. Email distribution lists and Facebook were used to promote the online survey. 18 The survey link was accompanied by a description introducing the project's purpose and gratitude 19 for participation. Qualtrics automatically collected participants' data. The survey was closed, and 20 data was collected on Jan. 19, 2021.' right before ' The topmost preferred poinsettia cultivars are...'.  My words of 'Consumer preference is vital for marketing of horticultural products. The manuscript will benefit other researchers by providing a reliable method in the research area.' are to describe the meaningful of the study. 

2. Again in Table 4 and 5 why the numbers of mean and std. are such close? While in the previous version , they are totally identical. Please explain. 

Author Response

1. In the response to reviewer's comments, the authors misunderstood my suggestion on the item No. 1. What I mean is to put the sentences of 'An 16 online consumer preference survey was posted from Dec. 15, 2020, to Jan. 19, 2021, in the Qualtrics 17 software platform. Email distribution lists and Facebook were used to promote the online survey. 18 The survey link was accompanied by a description introducing the project's purpose and gratitude 19 for participation. Qualtrics automatically collected participants' data. The survey was closed, and 20 data was collected on Jan. 19, 2021.' right before ' The topmost preferred poinsettia cultivars are...'.  My words of 'Consumer preference is vital for marketing of horticultural products. The manuscript will benefit other researchers by providing a reliable method in the research area.' are to describe the meaningful of the study. 

RESPONSE.
THANK YOU FOR THE CORRECTION.
BELOW IS THE EDITED ABSTRACT.

New introductions necessitate ongoing studies to keep producers updated with current trends. Consumers' preference study results for poinsettia cultivars may interest breeders, wholesale producers, and retail consumers. This study aimed to identify consumer preferences for traditional red, white, or pink poinsettia cultivars and novelty selections. An online consumer preference survey was posted from Dec. 15, 2020, to Jan. 19, 2021, in the Qualtrics software platform. Email distribution lists and Facebook were used to promote the online survey. The survey link was accompanied by a description introducing the project's purpose and gratitude for participation. Qualtrics automatically collected participants' data. The survey was closed, and data was collected on Jan. 19, 2021, from 792 respondents. The topmost preferred poinsettia cultivars are “Princettia Queen Pink,” “Winter Rose Dark Red,” “Ice Punch,” “Christmas Mouse,” “Princettia Pure White,” and “Princettia Hot Pink.” The color of poinsettia cultivars did not significantly affect the respondents’ willingness to pay. However, pot sizes substantially impacted their willingness to pay for poinsettias. Respondents were willing to pay $4.89, 8.13, 12.11, and 17.14 per pot for the 4, 6, 8, and 10-inch potted poinsettias, respectively. Some socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents influenced their decisions on how much they were willing to pay for poinsettias.  

2. Again in Table 4 and 5 why the numbers of mean and std. are such close? While in the previous version, they are totally identical. Please explain. 

RESPONSE.
THANK YOU FOR THE ACCURATE OBSERVATIONS ON THE SIMILAR MEANS BY POT SIZES OF THE THREE POINSETTIA COLORS.

The initial tables 4-7 were computed separately by color using Stata-17 SUMMARY command with any test on significance. To test for significance, the data by color were merged and analyzed by Stata17 ANOVA command.

Table 3 shows that there are no significant differences of the WTP by poinsettia color. It implies that the WTP by pot size when compared by color are also not significantly different. To make sure that this is so, I ran the analysis of the merged data in Stata 17 again yesterday just to make sure. The results are the same. The WTP by pot size compared by color are not significantly different.

SPELL CHECK WAS DONE THROUGH GRAMMARLY.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for implementing the required changes and providing the necessary answers. 

Author Response

Thank you for implementing the required changes and providing the necessary answers. 

RESPONSE.

We truly appreciate your suggestions. They enhanced the presentation and contents of this manuscript.

SPELL CHECK WAS DONE THROUGH GRAMMARLY.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx