친환경농.식품의 브랜드 및 제품요인이 소비자의 신뢰, 지각된가치와 구매행동에 미치는 영향

Abstract

With problems related to unsafe food constantly arising as a health issue, consumers' concern with food safety has been increasing. In particular, the recent incidents with food additives has put environment-friendly food in greater demand. However, the demand for environment-friendly agricultural and food products in Korea still has not been consistent or met supplies, causing an imbalance. This has posed such problems as distribution channels cannot secure to fill the orders, not being able to forecast the demand accurately, whereas the consumers have difficulty purchasing the products at the stores they want. Attempting to resolve these problems by increasing the demand for environment-friendly agricultural and food products, a body of research has been conducted on motivational factors that affect consumers' product purchase. Focusing on the effects of the characteristics of environment-friendly agricultural and food products and individual characteristics, these studies have suggested heightening the level of product trust and offering an affordable price to encourage more purchase. However, purchasing a product often involves not just distinctive product attributes but also the brand factor. This happens especially with a low involvement product or with the product of which the attributes are hard to grasp. From this perspective, there may be circumstances where the brand name affects the purchase of environment-friendly agricultural and food products since they are trust material, the attributes of which are hard to distinguish for consumers. In addition, distribution channels sometimes play as a product attribute. Product evaluation can be affected by not only the manufacturer but also the distribution channel that purchases the product. Especially for environment-friendly agricultural and food products, which have an exclusive outlet in a shop-in-shop form in big supermarkets along with a number of on- and off-line stores that sell environment-friendly products only, the types of distribution channels can make a difference. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of the previously researched purchase factors of environment- friendly agricultural products along with the brand factor on consumers' perceived value, trust, and future purchase intent. In addition, the study attempted to identify consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) by products and brands in order to suggest implications for marketing strategies and price policies.