Consumer Choice of Fitness Trackers: An Example of Modeling

Abstract

The study of consumer choice is an important classical research task for various markets for goods and services. This fully applies to new products and devices for household, personal monitoring, and self-monitoring of health status. In the last decade, a few such products have appeared and have become available to a wide range of buyers, in particular, fitness trackers and smartwatches of various manufacturers, brands, and models. It has become quite difficult for the buyer and the user to compare and choose a specific one. Therefore, the purpose of the work was to study the market of fitness trackers and smartwatches, determine the main criteria for their comparison by the consumer, and apply multi-criteria approaches for their assessment and selection, both by buyers and by sellers themselves, their sales specialists. The research methods used were consumer surveys, market systems analysis, multicriteria computer modeling. The proposed and described approach makes it possible to obtain computationally substantiated, objective numerical estimates for special fitness monitoring device, selected for compare consideration. Thus, it is possible to provide information support for consumer choice, as well as to carry out a comparative analysis of the range of products offered by their sellers themselves