Young Urban Adults' Preferences for Wine Attributes: An Exploratory Study of the Republic of Macedonia Wine Market Applying the Best-Worst Scaling

This work focuses on measuring the importance of the attributes which influence the wine choice of Macedonian young wine consumers when they purchase wine in wine stores. Our goal is to identify significant behavioral differences across genderdemographic subgroups of the sample, in order to give marketers an instrument to develop more efficient marketing strategies. Most marketing researchers use rating scales to understand consumer preferences. These have a range of problems, which can be ameliorated by the use of the new technique, the best-worst scaling (BWS). The objectives of the paper are twofold: first, to explore the preferences and gender differences of Macedonian young urban adults towards wine attributes; and second, to present the best-worst scaling method and to demonstrate its empirical use. A total of 100 Macedonian young consumers between the age of 25 and 34 purchasing wine in wine stores participated in a face-to-face interview preformed in three wine stores in Skopje and one in Bitola. The best-worst scaling method was applied to measure the level of importance to a list of most common attributes used in a choice of wine. The study results shows that young urban adults in their selection of wine give more importance for the wine attributes: type of wine (red/white), brand, grape variety and price. The attributes less preferred were alcohol content, medal/awards and country of origin. Moreover, the study showed that genders differ in their use of wine attributes. Young males prefer more barrel aged wines, while females put more attention to wine type and bottle design.