Assessing European Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Sustainable Laundry Detergents: A Choice Experiment Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My major concern with this study is that the authors did not consider the detergent's perfume as a criterion. Women, who represent almost 2/3 of the sample, are highly sensitive to the smell of detergents. A sustainable detergent that does not have a pleasant smell will hardly be bought by many women.

I advise the authors to discuss this issue further in the manuscript

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review of “Assessing European Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Sustainable Laundry Detergents: A Choice Experiment Approach”

this research analyzed consumers’ willingness to pay for the environmental protection attributes of detergents. The topic of this study is very important, but in order for readers to further understand, the following things are recommended:

In the model setting of this study,(line 361) it is recommended to clearly explain the types of variables being analyzed. For example, the types of codding for the dummy variables should be explained clearly to facilitate readers' understanding.

In addition, some variables such as respondents’ socioeconomic variables should be included in the model. The cross terms between attribute and socioeconomics were not included either.

It is recommended that this study include a section on policy implications to more clearly explain the application of this study in industries.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors address the highly relevant topic of sustainability in the category of washing machine detergent by performing a choice experiment. The article is well-written and scientifically as well as methodologically sound. Furthermore, the article offers important insights for practitioners on consumer behavior in the detergent market.

As the authors move on towards publications, I may offer some feedback:

1. I admit that I am not that familiar with the laundry detergent market. Nevertheless, I suspect that there are cultural (or geographic) differences regarding willingness to pay, washing frequency, the importance of sustainability, and other factors. The authors mention geographical differences in their discussion section. However, the authors could also discuss these differences in the former part of the paper: For instance, the literature review cites numerous studies, but does not indicate the location where each study was conducted. Also, the authors mention a preference for liquid detergent based on a former study without mentioning where the study was conducted.
2. Lines 146-149: The authors state that while there are many studies using choice experiments, few address sustainability in the context of laundry detergents. I don’t think that this is a justification for your study. Therefore, I think this argument should be inverted: There are studies on sustainability in laundry detergents, but few utilizing a choice experiment approach.
3. You might provide a clear definition of sustainability on which your paper is based on.
4. The study employs a pilot study followed by the main study. It would be beneficial to include a discussion of any insights gained from the pilot study that contributed to the refinement and enhancement of the main study design.

These aspects are more of a feedback than a necessity, it is up to you to consider them. In any case, I wish you all the best as you move forward to publication.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This article is well written, there are only a few points to consider:

1. Maybe you should re-consider the sentences from lines 130-132 considering sentence structure and grammar.
2. There are words like "us-age", or "In-novation", I think this happened by copy/pasting text from another word file.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Well done with the revision

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your revision and your detailed explanations. I fully agree with publication and wish you all the best.