Green Cosmetics—The Effects of Package Design on Consumers’ Willingness-to-Pay and Sustainability Perceptions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors conducted a mixed method analysis of the Effects of Package Design on Consumers’ Willingness-to-Pay and Sustainability Perceptions.

1. Why do you list sometimes the page number and sometimes not?
2. I think you should use 2.3.1 etc. instead of bold.
3. The structure is very strange. You list your research questions at the end of the methods and a section called 3.2.2 Results and Discussion and so on... Please structure your paper as follows: 1. Introduction (as you have it plus the research questions and hypothesis. And justify, based on your literature review, that these close important gaps within the literature.) 2. Background (your current sections 2.1 to 2.3). 3. Methodology (the paragraphs after figure 1, as well as 3.1.1 Expert Sampling etc.) 4. Discussion (please compare here how your results fits with previously published research). 5. Conclusion.
4. Please add a table that illustrates papers that have answered similar research questions. The table should highlight the weaknesses of their studies to highlight that you have solved these weaknesses. And compare their results with yours in the discussion section.
5. Please rewrite the methodology section and add all details that are required to understand both of your studies here. Make sure that you do not describe the methodology in the result section. Please add details of how the participants were recruited, their demographics, etc. there are so much information missing! Also, you don’t state in the methods that you are doing a regression analysis. Please take a paper that conducted also a similar mixed method study and use this as a guide to structure your paper as well as identify the information you need to report.
6. You forgot to mention the details of the ethical approval you have obtained to conduct a study with participants. You need to provide the details of the ethical committee that as approved your first and the section study. Which special consideration was taken to accommodate your participant that was under 17 years old? You state that you “Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the 633 study.” I hope you also obtained consent from the parents of those participants that were underage.

 

 

Author Response

Reviewer 1
Comment:
Why do you list sometimes the page number and sometimes not?
Reply:
The template provide by the journal has been used. During editing it displayed all page numbers properly.

Comment:
I think you should use 2.3.1 etc. instead of bold.
Reply:
The respective parts have been changed into section numbers.

Comment:
The structure is very strange. You list your research questions at the end of the methods and a section called 3.2.2 Results and Discussion and so on... 
Please structure your paper as follows: 1. Introduction (as you have it plus the research questions and hypothesis. And justify, based on your literature review, that these close important gaps within the literature.) 2. Background (your current sections 2.1 to 2.3). 3. Methodology (the paragraphs after figure 1, as well as 3.1.1 Expert Sampling etc.) 4. Discussion (please compare here how your results fits with previously published research). 5. Conclusion.
Reply:
The introduction already contains the information that currently there is only a single study on the topic and in how far this study provides to the existing literature. This aspect has been stressed even more. The research questions have been integrated into the introduction.
As detailled below the methodology section has been reworked. 
Only little literature does exist on the topic as detailled in the introduction and only a single study that implements a comparable methodology exists. Additionally, comparison to that study is only possible in parts. Thus, no dedicated discussion with this focus has been included. Nevertheless, the section of results and discussion has been split into a part on results alone and the discussion part that constitutes a new discussion section.

Comment:
Please add a table that illustrates papers that have answered similar research questions. The table should highlight the weaknesses of their studies to highlight that you have solved these weaknesses. And compare their results with yours in the discussion section.
Reply:
As stated in the article currently there is only a single article that considers a comparable topic. The added value of the article to the existing literature is detailed by the end of the introduction. 

Comment:
Please rewrite the methodology section and add all details that are required to understand both of your studies here. Make sure that you do not describe the methodology in the result section. 
Reply:
Even though it makes the article partially achronistic since the sequential structure the mix of the qualitative and quantitative study necessitates the results of the qualitative study as methodological input for the quantitative study, former Table 2 with the relevant attributes and levels and the corresponding text has been moved to the methodology section.

Comment:
Please add details of how the participants were recruited, their demographics, etc. there are so much information missing! Also, you don’t state in the methods that you are doing a regression analysis. Please take a paper that conducted also a similar mixed method study and use this as a guide to structure your paper as well as identify the information you need to report.
Reply:
The demographics of the participants is already detailled in the beginning of section 3.2.1. The paragraph has in part be reformulated to make it clearer. Information about the experts has been added as it is possible regarding the assurance of anonymity towards them.

Comment:
You forgot to mention the details of the ethical approval you have obtained to conduct a study with participants. You need to provide the details of the ethical committee that as approved your first and the section study. 
Reply:
A comment regarding ethics approval has been added to the article.

Comment:
Which special consideration was taken to accommodate your participant that was under 17 years old? You state that you “Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the 633 study.” I hope you also obtained consent from the parents of those participants that were underage.
Reply:
The respective paragraph was badly phrased, this candidate has been filtered out before the analysis. The paragraph has been rephrased to make this clearer.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study presents an interesting and relevant topic concerning the impact of packaging design on consumer perceptions and willingness to pay in the green cosmetics industry. However, the manuscript lacks clarity in presenting its main contributions, as well as methodological rigor in certain areas. Several critical issues must be addressed before considering the manuscript for publication.

 

The abstract lacks numerical data that reflect the study's key findings. It is necessary to include figures and statistical results to give the reader a clearer understanding of the study's impact.

 

The introduction does not clearly state the main contribution of the study. The authors should explicitly define how their research advances knowledge in the field of sustainable cosmetics and consumer behavior.

Section 2.2 - Industry Context

• It is recommended to include a summary table in this section that highlights major changes and trends in the cosmetics industry concerning sustainability and packaging.

Methodology

• There is mention of a questionnaire in the text, but the manuscript does not provide the questionnaire itself. It is essential to include the questionnaire either in an appendix or supplementary material.

• Details about the interviews are insufficient. Important factors such as interview duration, gender, roles of participants, and criteria for selecting experts must be explicitly described. Without this information, the validity of expert opinions may be questioned.

• In Section 3.2.1, the sampling method is not mentioned. The authors should specify how participants were selected to ensure transparency and reproducibility.

Results & Tables

• Table 3 would be more informative if presented as a heat map, which could enhance visual representation and interpretation of the data.

• The study would benefit from the inclusion of images showing product packaging before and after implementing the recommendations derived from the study.

Formatting Issues

• Bold formatting in lines 185, 201, and 207 is unnecessary and should be removed for consistency. Similarly, bold formatting in lines 548 and 549 should also be avoided.

 

Author Response

Reviewer 2
The study presents an interesting and relevant topic concerning the impact of packaging design on consumer perceptions and willingness to pay in the green cosmetics industry. However, the manuscript lacks clarity in presenting its main contributions, as well as methodological rigor in certain areas. Several critical issues must be addressed before considering the manuscript for publication.

Comment: 
The abstract lacks numerical data that reflect the study's key findings. It is necessary to include figures and statistical results to give the reader a clearer understanding of the study's impact.
Reply:
It is no clear how and which figures should be put into the abstract. The respective WTP for the mentioned characteristics is included into the abstract however to give the reader a better understanding of the study design and its findings.

Comment:
The introduction does not clearly state the main contribution of the study. The authors should explicitly define how their research advances knowledge in the field of sustainable cosmetics and consumer behavior.
Reply:
The last part of the introduction already states the four ways in which the study contributes to the existing literature. In addition to this the preceding paragraph has been expended with relation to the literature where this study closes a gap in the literature.

Comment:
Section 2.2 - Industry Context
It is recommended to include a summary table in this section that highlights major changes and trends in the cosmetics industry concerning sustainability and packaging.
Reply:
A respective table has been added.

Comment:
Methodology
There is mention of a questionnaire in the text, but the manuscript does not provide the questionnaire itself. It is essential to include the questionnaire either in an appendix or supplementary material.
Reply:
The major part of the questionnaire is the evaluation of the 16 cards. The process of the generation of these cards is already described in the methodology section. An exemplary card used in the survey has been added to illustrate the study. Additionally, a translated version of the two questions that went along with the cards are included in the text. Before this the two introductory question were added as well. The three characteristics surveyed in the demographics are already mentioned in the section.
The three interview guides for the expert interview guides were excluded from the article since they the expert study is primarily a preliminary study to the quantitative conjoint analysis and the guides would add limited insights for the reader as compared to the information already inherent in the overview in Figure 2.

Comment:
Details about the interviews are insufficient. Important factors such as interview duration, gender, roles of participants, and criteria for selecting experts must be explicitly described. Without this information, the validity of expert opinions may be questioned.
Reply:
The selection and acquisition process of the experts has been described in more detail. As much information about the as is possible regarding the anonymity agreement with the experts has been added to the article.

Comment:
In Section 3.2.1, the sampling method is not mentioned. The authors should specify how participants were selected to ensure transparency and reproducibility.
Reply:
The sampling process has been described in more detail.

Comment:
Results & Tables
Table 3 would be more informative if presented as a heat map, which could enhance visual representation and interpretation of the data.
Reply:
A heat map has been inserted even though its use remains rather questionable due to the relativistic nature of the WTP, i.e., its dependence on the setting of the base category.

Comment:
The study would benefit from the inclusion of images showing product packaging before and after implementing the recommendations derived from the study.
Reply:
I think at this point a missunderstanding exists. The study does not consider a concrete product and its purpose has not been to determine the ideal packaging for this product. Even though images were used in the context of the survey, they primarily served the purpose of illustrating the experimental situation. Nevertheless, we take up this proposal and include one of the images from the study to better illustrate its realization.

Comment:
Formatting Issues
Bold formatting in lines 185, 201, and 207 is unnecessary and should be removed for consistency. Similarly, bold formatting in lines 548 and 549 should also be avoided.
Reply:
The bold headings have been replaced with respectively formatted headings including heading numbers.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am happy with all the corrections that were carried out by the authors in my previous revision. The paper can now be considered for acceptance.