How to Understand the Customer Preferences Regarding Spectacle Frames? A Grounded Theory Approach

The digital voice-of-customer provides information to companies about the products and services available on the market from customer’s perspective. The paper aim is to find out what are the preferences of customers in the matter of spectacle frames, analysing the comments left by customers on social networks, Facebook and Instagram. The online content is analysed using the qualitative method, named grounded theory. In the specialized literature, studies on the preferences of eyeglass wearers regarding spectacle frames have been carried out to a large extent, using the Kano method and to a small extent on the grounded theory basis. Grounded theory methodology used is based on several stages, data collection, the coding process, theoretical saturation, theoretical sampling and constant comparison, in order to obtain the answer to the question: “Is grounded theory a reliable source of information from which we can understand customers’ preferences on eyeglass frames?”. The results obtained in this study will be used to carry out the eye-tracking experiment, in a future study, to test if the preferences of customers from Western part of Romania match the preferences of customers from all over the world.