Question

Ahmad, S. N. B. B. (2010). Organic food: A study on demographic characteristics and factors influencing purchase intentions among consumers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. International journal of business and management, 5(2), 105.

Quah, S. H., & Tan, A. K. (2009). Consumer purchase decisions of organic food products: An ethnic analysis. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 22(1), 47-58.

Shaharudin, M. R., Pani, J. J., Mansor, S. W., & Elias, S. J. (2010). Factors Affecting Purchase Intention of Organic Food in Malaysia's Kedah State/FACTEURS INFLUANT SUR L'INTENTION D'ACHAT D'ALIMENTS BIOLOGIQUES DANS LA RÉGION DE KEDAH EN MALAISIE. Cross-Cultural Communication, 6(2), 105.

Wee, C. S., Ariff, M. S. B. M., Zakuan, N., Tajudin, M. N. M., Ismail, K., &Ishak, N. (2014). Consumers perception, purchase intention and actual purchase behavior of organic food products. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, 3(2), 378.

Prepare a consumer report using the 4 articles above as main references. You may also want to do additional academic reading that is relevant to answer this assignment question.

Summary of consumers’ perception towards organic food products in 1500 words.                                              

Answer 1

Summary - Consumers’ perception towards organic food products

Organic food products include both agricultural products as well as poultry (chicken, eggs) and meat products. The basic premise for defining organic products is in how it cannot be made rather than how it can be made. The organic products must be free from use of fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones or genetic engineering. One important point to note is that there is difference in natural foods and organic food although they are at times used interchangeably. Not all natural foods are organic while some natural food can be organic. Green or organic foods are the foods, which are generally referred as safe for consumption, fine quality, are nutritious foods, are produced under the principle of sustainable development (Liu, 2003), and are concerned with humane animal treatment.

A green consumer is conscious and interested in ecological issues; they perceive and believe that all products and services have environmental impact therefore their initiative is to reduce the damage as much as possible. Such consumers are willing to change their purchasing and consumption behavior to a more environmental friendly way and are willing to pay more for the products. But it is not necessary that such a consumer will behave in a green way. As Ohtomo and Hirose (2007) found that people who are environmentally conscious do not necessarily behave pro-environmentally; for example, people might throw rubbish away when most people around them do so (reactive process, as opposed to intentional decision making). Although most consumers have a positive intention towards the environment and purchase of organic foods, consumers face certain constraints for purchase of organic foods like high price, availability and lack of information, lack of trust in organic certification schemes and quality.

Multiple researches have conducted elaborate studies to understand the impact of socio-economic, demographic, awareness as well as attitudinal outlook on their propensity to buy and consume organic food products.

A variety of statistical modelling tools has been deployed to carry out studies on variety of demographic data.

Some researchers have used Factor analysis on the data collected to test their hypothesis like:

1. The intention to buy organic food products is higher in case of people who believe that consuming organic products are safe and healthy
2. The intention to buy organic food products is higher in case of people who perceive these to be environment friendly
3. The intention to buy organic food products is higher in case of people who perceived an intrinsic worth of the organic foods
4. Higher awareness lead to higher propensity of organic food purchase

The summary of the results are as follows:

1. Women were found to be more likely than men to agree on buying organic foods if the price decreased and availability increased
2. Most agreed that organic foods are healthier
3. Just creating awareness has not led to proportionate increase in consumption hence detailed study and root cause analysis needs to be conducted to decipher the buying patterns and triggers for buying organic food products
4. Awareness coupled with highlighting the benefits of organic food will help increasing the buying propensity.
5. Those who are on boarded with the idea are willing to pay higher prices for buying the organic products

Others have used Logit analysis to test their hypothesis and segregated the analysis basis different ethnic races in Malaysia

The summary of the results are as follows:

1. Females are 10% more likely to purchase Organic foods than males.
2. On the whole, higher income individuals have a higher propensity to purchase
3. Those concerned about chemical additives are 12% more likely to purchase organic foods and those using health supplements are 14% more likely to purchase organic foods
4. Price conscious consumers and those hindered by availability of organic products are 16% less likely to purchase organic products

Detailed segregated analysis and results were also presented for different ethnicity of Malaysian population like Malays females being 20% more likely to purchase organics than males while for Chinese it is 15% and older Chinese are more likely to consumer organic products. While in case of Indians/other consumers those taking health supplements are 60 % more likely to purchase organic products

While many have used regression analysis on data collected using cluster sampling

The summary of the results are as follows:

Hence marketers should use the analysis to better target their products for the right segments by understanding the buying behaviours and the triggers that ultimately lead to buying organic products.

1. The consumers in Malaysia place higher importance to health consciousness and perceived value.

2. low level of importance on food safety concern and religious factor in their intention to purchase organic food products

   Perceived value is not all about price alone. It is also about the benefits of having, using or consuming a product. Customers form expectations about the value and satisfaction that various market offerings will deliver and buy accordingly (Kotler, 2010).