Part 1 Scenario of the Display Board of Laundry Detergent
The scenario of the laundry detergent display board is: it’s a freshman student’s first time to buy laundry detergent, and he/she has no idea of which brand to choose. At this scene we show them our laundry display board to help them make decisions. And we record their process of making decisions and analysis the attributes they value most.

This is the Laundry Detergent Display Board. | Brand A | Brand B | Brand C | Brand D | Price | 11.99 | 11.99 | 17.99 | 11.99 | Scent | Clean Breeze | Lavenders | Clean Breeze | Lavenders | Liquid/Powder | Liquid | Powder | Liquid | Powder | Inclusion of Fabric-Softener | Yes | No | Yes | No |

Part 2 Responses and interpretations
At this part, each of our 4 group members interprets the 6 responses and we recorded their order to uncover the information.

Can’s interpretation of 6 responses
Response 1: Male
The most important attribute: Scent- Clean Breeze: Brand A C
The next important attribute: Liquid- Brand A
Interpretation: Scent is the most important attribute to him, and after he optimize with “Clean Breeze”, he looks for the information of whether detergent of two remaining brands is liquid or not. After seeing Brand A is liquid, he chooses A. Which shows Liquid is the next most important attribute to him, and he just need to optimize with the Liquid.

Response 2: Female
The most important attribute: Scent- Lavenders: Brand B D
The next important attribute: Liquid- Brand D
Interpretation: Scent is the most important attribute to her, and after she optimize with “Lavenders”, she looks for the information of whether detergent of two remaining brands is liquid or not. After seeing Brand A is liquid, she chooses A. So Liquid is the next most important attribute to her, and she optimize with the next important attribute.

Response 3: Male
The most important attribute: Price- lowest: Brand A B D
The next important attribute: Scent- Clean Breeze: Brand A
Interpretation: Price is the most important attribute to him, and after he optimize with lowest price, he looks for the information of two remaining brands’ scent. After seeing Brand A is Clean Breeze, he optimize with Clean Breeze, so he choose Brand A.

Response 4: Male
The most important attribute: Price- lowest: Brand A B D
The next important attribute: Liquid- Brand A D
Inclusion of softener: Brand A
Interpretation: Price is the most important attribute to him, and after he optimize with lowest price, he looks for the information of whether detergent of three remaining brands is liquid or not. After seeing Brand A and D is liquid, he optimize A and D. At last, he optimize on brand A which include softener.

Response 5: Female
The most important attribute: Scent: Brand A B C D
The next important attribute: Liquid- Brand A D
Price: Brand A D
Inclusion of softener: Brand A
Interpretation: Scent is the most important attribute to her, and after she satisficing with both “Lavenders” and “Clean Breeze”, she looks for the information of whether detergent s is liquid or not, then she optimize with Brand A and D. After this she looked at price, since the price are the same, she looked at inclusion of softener, she choose Brand A.

Response 6: Male
The most important attribute: Liquid: Brand A D
The next important attribute: Price: Brand A D
Scent- Clean Breeze: Brand A
Interpretation: Liquid is the most important attribute to him, and after he optimize with this, he optimize for lowest price. After seeing Brand A and D has same price, he optimize with Clean Breeze, so he choose Brand A..

Yilun’s interpretation of 6 responses
Response 1: Male
The most important attribute: Price: Brand C
Interpretation: Price is the most important attribute to him, and he may be just believe that higher price means better quality.

Response 2: Female
The most important attribute: Scent: Brand A B C D
The next important attribute: Liquid：Brand A D
Interpretation: Scent is the most important attribute to him, and she satisfied with both “Clean Breeze” and “Lavadas”. The she looks for the information of whether detergent of all four brands are liquid or not. After seeing Brand A and Brand D is liquid, she chooses to see the price of A and D. Both A’s and D’s price can satisfy her, and she look whether the two brands have softener. Finally, she choose Brand A. The result shows that liquid is the next most important attribute to her.

Response 3: Female
The most important attribute: Softener: Brand A C
The next important attribute: Liquid: Brand A
Interpretation: Softener is the most important attribute to her, and after she optimize with “Yes”, which means with softener, he looks for the information of whether detergent of two remaining brands is liquid or not. After seeing Brand A is liquid, she chooses A. The result shows liquid is the next most important attribute to her.

Response 4: Male
The most important attribute: Softener: Brand A C
The next important attribute: Price: Brand A
Interpretation: Softener is the most important attribute to him, and after he optimize with “Yes”, which means with softener, he looks for the information of whether detergent of two remaining brands is liquid or not. After seeing Brand A is cheaper, he chooses A. The result shows price is the next most important attribute to him.

Response 5: Male
The most important attribute: Price: Brand A B D
The next important attribute: Liquid- Brand A
Interpretation: Price is the most important attribute to him, and she satisfied with the price $11.99. Then she looks at whether Brand A, B and D are liquid. Brand A and D is still the option because he prefer liquid. Finally, he look at the softener of A and D, and he chooses A. The result shows liquid is the next most important attribute to him.

Response 6: Female
The most important attribute: Liquid: Brand A D
The next important attribute: Price: Brand A D
Interpretation: Liquid is the most important attribute to her, and after she optimize with “Liquid”, she looks for the price information of two remaining brands. After seeing Brand A and D are at the same price, she looks at the softener and finally chooses A. The result shows price is the next most important attribute to her.
Yun’s interpretation of 6 responses
Response 1: Female
The most important attribute: Liquid- Brand A D
The next important attribute: Scent-Clean Breeze: Brand A D
Interpretation: Whether the detergent is liquid or powder is the most important attribute to this respondent, and after she optimize with “Liquid”, she looks for the information of the scent of the detergent. After seeing the scent of Brand A is Clean Breeze and scent of Brand D is Lavender, she thought they are both okay for her, which we called satisficing. And then she looks for information on whether the detergent contains fabric softener and found out A contains fabric softener while D doesn’t, as a result, She was trying to optimize on the attributes.

Response 2: Male
The most important attribute: Price: Brand A, B, C, D
The next important attribute: Scent- Clean Breeze: Brand A C
Interpretation: The price is the most important attribute to this respondent. However, when he looked at all the prices, he thought they are all acceptable even though one of them is more expensive, he was satisficing in this case. Then he seeks information for the scent of this product and chose brand A and C, this is the next important attribute to him and he was optimizing on the attribute. Then he continued looking for information of brand A and C, and finally chose A since A is liquid while C is powder. She was optimizing on the attribute.

Response 3: Female
The most important attribute: Fabric Softener –Brand B D
The next important attribute: Price –Brand B D
Interpretation: The most important attribute is whether the detergent contains fabric softener, she optimized with Brand B and D which do not have fabric softener and then looked for information of the Price. With B and D both having the same price, which is also an optimize choice, she looks for the scent and this attribute is the same case that the scent of these two brands are both Lavender. After all, she concerned about whether the detergent is liquid or powder and chose brand D which is Liquid and this is her optimize choice.

Response 4: Male
The most important attribute: Scent—Brand A C
The next important attribute: Price—Brand A,
Interpretation: The most important attribute for this respondent is the scent of the detergent. Among two scents, he chose brand A & C, which are both clean breeze and we called this optimize. After that, he looks for information about price, which is the next important attribute, and he chose A, which is cheaper than C and this is also optimize.

Response 5: Female
The most important attribute: Scent —Brand B D
The next important attribute: Price—Brand B D
Interpretation: The most important attribute is whether the scent of detergent, she optimized with Brand B and D which are Lavender. With B and D both having the same price, which is also an optimize choice, she looks for whether the detergent is liquid or powder and she chose D, which is an optimize choice for her.

Response 6: Female
The most important attribute: Price –Brand C
Interpretation: The most important attribute is the price. She optimized it and chose the most expensive one, after seeing the price, she did not try to seek for any other information.
Run’s interpretation of 6 responses
Response 1: Female The most important attribute: Scent-Brand B D The next attribute: Inclusion of fabric softener- Brand B
Interpretation:The first thing that female 1 did was gather information for every brand regarding what their scents are. It means the most important thing for her to buy a laundry detergent is to find her favorite scent. She likes lavender and she optimized her goal. Then she looked at whether it has a fabric softener or not. Unfortunately, the brands who are lavender scent do not have fabric softener. After seeing the fabric softener, she chose the price. The remained brands still have same price, so she moved to liquid or powder, she decided to buy powder finally.

Response 2: Female The most important attribute: Price- Brand A B D The next attribute: Scent- Brand A
Interpretation: The first thing that female 2 did was gather information for every brand regarding what their prices are. It means the most important thing for her to buy a laundry detergent is to find out the lowest price. She likes low prices and she satisfied her goal. Then she looked at the scent. Because she does not like lavender, she decided to buy clean breeze finally.

Response 3: Male The most important attribute: Scent- Brand A C The next attribute: Liquid – Brand C
Interpretation: The first thing that male 1 did was gather information for every brand regarding what their scents are. It means the most important thing for him to buy a laundry detergent is to find out his favorite scent. Because he does not like lavender, he decided to buy clean breeze to optimize his goal. After seeing the scent, he moved to liquid or powder, he decided to buy powder finally.

Response 4: Female The most important attribute: Scent- Brand A D The next attribute: Liquid- Brand A
Interpretation: The first thing that female 3 did was gather information for every brand regarding what their scents are. It means the most important thing for her to buy a laundry detergent is to find her favorite scent. However she likes both lavender and clean breeze. Then she looked at whether it is liquid or powder. She chose liquid to satisfy her goal. After that she moved to prices, the remained brands still have same price, so she finally chose the brand includes softener.

Response 5: Female The most important attribute: Scent- Brand B D The next attribute: Liquid – Brand B
Interpretation: The first thing that female 4 did was gather information for every brand regarding what their scents are. It means the most important thing for him to buy a laundry detergent is to find out her favorite scent. Because she does not know what the clean breeze is, she decided to buy lavender to satisfy her goal. After seeing the scent, she moved to liquid or powder, she decided to buy powder finally.

Response 6: Male The most important attribute: liquid or powder- Brand A D The next attribute: price- Brand A
Interpretation: The first thing that male 2 did was gather information for every brand regarding whether they are liquid or powder. It means the most important thing for him to buy a laundry detergent is to find out the liquid to optimize his goal. Then he looked at the price. Unfortunately, the remained brands have same price, so he moved to scent, he decided to buy clean breeze finally.

Part 3 Analysis and Suggestions Most Important Attribute | Female | Male | Total | Total | 13 | 11 | 24 | Price | 2 | 5 | 8 | Scent | 7 | 3 | 10 | Liquid/ Powder | 2 | 2 | 4 | Inclusion of Softener | 2 | 1 | 3 |

Next Important Attribute | Female | Male | Total | Price | 3 | 5 | 8 | Scent | 2 | 1 | 3 | Liquid/ Powder | 6 | 4 | 10 | Inclusion of Softener | 1 | 0 | 1 |

We can conclude that most of female’s most important attribute is scent, for male is price, and total is still scent. Most people have their flavor of scent and don’t want any scent else. From this conclusion we can see that female value scent most, and if we want to build a brand within housewives we may bring most popular scents and bring some unusual scent to catch more consumers. But for man they are very direct, they just want to know the price first, and most of them just choose the lowest price. To catch this part of market we can have some economic package of detergent. And for the whole market our suggestion is provide more valuable package to attract price sensitive customers. And provide scent by investigation of what scents are the most popular.

As for the next important attributes, female values whether it’s liquid or powder, male still concentrate on price, by total most people values liquid or powder. We can tell most people prefer liquid than powder in our survey. If male didn’t put price as the most important attribute they would put it as the next important attribute. But we assume that is because male don’t know detergent as female do. So they have to make decision based on price, as for most female their life connect with housework more, so they don’t need to judge a detergent by its price. And by this fact we suggest detergent could put its main functional words like “super clean” on the package for people who don’t know the brand to have a hint. And we can also put advertise in the TV in supermarket to do the introduction of detergent, to attract more consumers.

And in the process we found that most people just concentrate on one or two characters and they don’t chase for the best, just satisficing themselves with a familiar character within other reasonable range. By this we thought we also push sales by choose a good place at supermarket for a brand to help it be chosen with more opportunity.