Should I Buy Organic Food? A Psychological Perspective on Purchase Decisions

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Anchal Arora ◽

Nishu Rani ◽

Chandrika Devi ◽

Sanjay Gupta

Keyword(s):

Fuzzy Ahp ◽

Organic Food ◽

High Growth ◽

High Growth Rate ◽

Influential Factors ◽

Purchase Decisions ◽

Key Factors ◽

Content Type ◽

Behavioural Intentions ◽

Food Market

PurposeOrganic food market has grown rapidly on a global level and so is the interest of customers. The present paper ranks the factors and sub-criteria which are taken into consideration while making organic purchase decisions resulting in understanding the behaviour of consumers.Design/methodology/approachThe present paper considered a sample of 550 respondents in the area of Punjab. Fuzzy AHP technique was applied to understand the key factors and sub-criteria which play a major role in organic food purchase decisions. The paper is empirical and descriptive in nature. The factors considered for the study include price, consumer knowledge, trust, attitude, behavioural intentions, subjective norms, perceived personal relevance and perceived consumer effectiveness.FindingsThe three major influential factors include price, trust and attitude ranked in the same order of preference which majorly affects the purchase decisions and talking about sub-criteria the three major criteria to purchase organic food include: “Price plays a significant role in purchase decisions (P2)”, “Organic food keeps me fit and healthy (A1)” and “Organic food intake makes me feel energetic (A2)”.Research limitations/implicationsThe present paper is limited to the area of Punjab and majorly eight factors have been taken into consideration. Further research can be explored on broader geographical and cultural areas with new dimensions in criteria and sub-criteria.Practical implicationsThe findings of this paper will surely help the marketers to understand the behavioural intentions and preferences of the customers. Accordingly, they will strategize the policies to convert organic food market into a niche market with a high growth rate.Originality/valueThe existing literature explored various key factors. However, the present study comes up with ranking to the factors according to their priority in purchase decisions. This will definitely help marketers, business houses, practitioners and academicians about the key factors which affect purchase decisions, and it will surely add incredible knowledge into the existing database.

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Consumer Purchase Decisions of Organic Food Products: An Ethnic Analysis

Journal of International Consumer Marketing ◽

10.1080/08961530902844949 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 47-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Su-Huey Quah ◽

Andrew K. G. Tan

Keyword(s):

Organic Food ◽

Food Products ◽

Purchase Decisions

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Important Influencing and Decision Factors in Organic Food Purchasing in Hungary

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11216075 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (21) ◽

pp. 6075 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Kinga Nagy-Pércsi ◽

Csaba Fogarassy

Keyword(s):

Production Systems ◽

Organic Food ◽

Free Food ◽

Purchase Decisions ◽

Consumer Market ◽

Food Purchasing ◽

Decision Factors ◽

Food Shopping ◽

And Cluster Analysis ◽

Information Consumers

Organic farming is one of the most developed and accepted production systems from the aspect of sustainability. In this study, the Hungarian organic market was segmented on the basis of attitude-relating motivations of organic food purchasing. A descriptive statistic was used for the whole sample, and factor and cluster analysis was applied to segment the organic consumers. A sample of 247 questionnaires was processed to investigate the behavior and characteristics of Hungarian organic food consumers. Our aim was to explore the Hungarian organic consumer market from the aspect of trust in labels, we would like to find answers to the questions “Which kind of information consumers check on the product?” and “What are the main influencing factors of purchase decisions?”. According to our research, the majority of organic food consumers say that color is not as important as taste or freshness, so they do not associate the color of the product with the freshness of the product. Based on the factor analysis, four clusters could be separated that show different shopping motives and differ in their attitude towards food shopping. We named these clusters: Health-conscious, Disappointed, Safe and free food eaters, and Quality-price comparators. Based on the recognized consumer segments, different information should be communicated to consumers so that they can use it in their consumer decisions. Our research suggests that branding or product labeling is not as important to organic food consumers as we previously thought.

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