Scale library · Consumer behavior

Perceived value scale (PERVAL): Sweeney & Soutar (2001)

PERVAL was developed by Sweeney and Soutar (2001) to measure the value consumers perceive in a durable product at brand level. Its 19 items cover four dimensions: quality value, emotional value, price value and social value. Unlike one-dimensional measures of value (quality relative to price), PERVAL separates emotional value and social image. It is often used in theses on purchase intention, satisfaction and loyalty for phones, cosmetics, fashion and organic food.

Cite the original, not the blog.

Model or scale: PERVAL
Constructs: 4
Items: 19 (2 reverse-coded)

Original English items

Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.

Quality Value (Functional Value, Performance/Quality) (QV, 6 items)

Code	Item wording	Reverse-coded
QV1	[Product] has consistent quality.	No
QV2	[Product] is well made.	No
QV3	[Product] has an acceptable standard of quality.	No
QV4 (R)	[Product] has poor workmanship.	Yes
QV5 (R)	[Product] would not last a long time.	Yes
QV6	[Product] would perform consistently.	No

Emotional Value (EV, 5 items)

Code	Item wording	Reverse-coded
EV1	[Product] is one that I would enjoy.	No
EV2	[Product] would make me want to use it.	No
EV3	[Product] is one that I would feel relaxed about using.	No
EV4	[Product] would make me feel good.	No
EV5	[Product] would give me pleasure.	No

Price Value (Functional Value, Price/Value for Money) (PV, 4 items)

Code	Item wording	Reverse-coded
PV1	[Product] is reasonably priced.	No
PV2	[Product] offers value for money.	No
PV3	[Product] is a good product for the price.	No
PV4	[Product] would be economical.	No

Social Value (SV, 4 items)

Code	Item wording	Reverse-coded
SV1	[Product] would help me to feel acceptable.	No
SV2	[Product] would improve the way I am perceived.	No
SV3	[Product] would make a good impression on other people.	No
SV4	[Product] would give its owner social approval.	No

Response scale

A 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree … 7 = Strongly agree) is the usual format in studies reusing PERVAL; many studies use 5 points.

Recoding reverse-coded items: 1–7 scale: new score = 1 + 7 − score = 8 − score; 1–5 scale: new score = 1 + 5 − score = 6 − score.

Licence and permission

The items are published in an academic article and widely used in research. Cite the original article; no permission is needed for non-commercial academic use.

Sources (APA 7)

Petrick, J. F. (2002). Development of a multi-dimensional scale for measuring the perceived value of a service. Journal of Leisure Research, 34(2), 119–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2002.11949965
Ranaweera, C., & Karjaluoto, H. (2017). The impact of service bundles on the mechanism through which functional value and price value affect WOM intent. Journal of Service Management, 28(4), 707–723. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-03-2016-0065
Sweeney, J. C., & Soutar, G. N. (2001). Consumer perceived value: The development of a multiple item scale. Journal of Retailing, 77(2), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(01)00041-0
Vu, T. V., Nguyen, Y. T. H., & Nguyen, P. V. (2026). Predicting virtual goods purchases in Vietnam’s MMOGs with a TAM-PERVAL model using PLS-SEM and ANN. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 13, 80. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-06379-2
Walsh, G., Shiu, E., & Hassan, L. M. (2014). Replicating, validating, and reducing the length of the consumer perceived value scale. Journal of Business Research, 67(3), 260–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.05.012

Vietnamese translation

A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.

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