The authors test six market entry barriers in consumer and industrial markets: cost advantages of incumbents, product differentiation of incumbents, capital requirements, customer switching costs, access to distribution channels, and government policy. They model market entry decisions of 137 executives in 49 major U.S. corporations with a decision-making instrument consisting of 32 market entry opportunities. Each respondent's decisions are modeled by regression analysis. The differences in the importance of the six market entry barriers for early and late entry in consumer and industrial goods markets are investigated. The results indicate that marketing executives consider all six barriers in making market entry decisions. The cost advantages of incumbents are considered to be the most important of the market entry barriers. Major differences also are discovered among the other five barriers. Furthermore, the importance of the barriers differs between consumer and industrial goods markets.
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