دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی کانال های بازاریابی برای غذای محلی - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Local food can be purchased through intermediated marketing channels, such as grocery stores, or through direct-to-consumer marketing channels, for instance, farmers markets. While the number of farms that utilize direct-to-consumer outlets keeps growing, the value of direct-to-consumer sales has reached a plateau. At the same time, intermediated sales continue to rise. If consumers prefer to purchase local food through intermediated channels, then policies designed to support direct channels may be misguided. Using an online choice experiment, this paper investigates consumers' willingness to pay for local food differentiated by marketing channel. We find that, on average, consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food. However, they are not willing to pay premiums for local food that is sold at farmers markets, and discount it when it is purchased directly from an urban farm. Our findings can be used by farmers, marketers and policy makers to develop a better understanding of consumers' motivation for buying local through various channels.

Conclusions and Policy Implications

In this research we attempt to disentangle consumers' preferences for the local attribute from their preferences for a marketing channel. Doing so is necessary to evaluate policies that are aiming to grow local food sales through the support of direct-to-consumer venues. By evaluating the demand for local separately from the demand for a channel, our experimental design allows us to identify consumers' WTP for each target of such policies. Specifically, we determine if consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food per se, and for local food sold at the grocery store, farmers market or urban farm. In addition, we examine if this premium is affected by the convenience of the point of sale, as well as, by being organically grown. Results from online choice experiments show that consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food. Moreover, while customers might think that shopping at direct-to-consumer venues provides some additional intangible benefits, they seem to value whether the food was produced locally more, and display an equal level of support for local farmers who sell their produce at different venues. As a result, they do not have a preference for where to buy local produce whether at farmers markets or grocery stores. Furthermore, consumers actually discount local produce sold at urban farms, probably due to the belief that these venues offer a good value for their money. Therefore, the fact that the direct sales of local food seem to plateau is less surprising, especially considering the increasing