How do consumers express their appreciation of wood surfaces? Norway spruce floors in Germany as an example

Abstract

For high-end wood products, appearance is a key factor. Traditionally, manufacturers grade wood considering technical parameters and industrial customers’ requirements. In contrast, knowing the consumers’ verbal items would be of advantage for both producers and buyers. Three research questions are identified exploring possibilities to utilize consumers’ appreciations. (1) Is it possible to establish a consistent characterization with verbal items? (2) Can appreciation be linked to visual wood properties? (3) Can the great natural variety of wood surfaces be assigned to desirable product groups? Out of 57 spruce logs, 810 floor boards were produced and sorted into 15 ‘visual classes’ (VC). Images were retrieved and virtual floors composed from each VC. Consumers evaluated selected floor samples in an online survey using a set of 7 items. Hierarchical cluster analysis and discriminant analysis are applied to analyze the answers. Only 4 out of the 7 items (‘vividness’, ‘evenness’, ‘contrast’ and ‘stripes’) were sufficient to allocate the VCs to four groups which represent different consumer appreciations. Inverse assessments of different product groups support a more differentiated marketing. The results indicate that verbal judgements of high-end wood surfaces can hold advantages directing production and marketing efforts more towards consumers’ preferences and thus increasing satisfaction and added value.