A cross-cultural exploration of attitudes toward product expiration dates

This is an exploratory study examining consumer attitudes toward product expiration dates in three different countries, the United States, Canada, and Turkey. In addition, the study investigates the differences in the importance of product expiration dates for three products, yogurt, over-the-counter medicine, and camera film, in the three cultures. A total of 687 surveys were gathered in the three countries. The results show that there are, indeed, differences among the consumers in three countries. American and Canadian consumers check product expiration dates before purchasing and before using products more often than Turkish consumers. Although most of the differences observed are between the respondents in Turkey versus the respondents in the United States and Canada, some differences between the U.S. and Canadian respondents are also found, indicating that culture plays an important role in consumer uncertainty avoidance. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.