VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ---------o0o--------- NGUYEN THI THUONG ANTECEDENTS OF CONSUMER’S CHOICE OF FRESH APPLES IN VIETNAM MASTER THESIS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ---------o0o--------- NGUYEN THI THUONG ANTECEDENTS OF CONSUMER’S CHOICE OF FRESH APPLES IN VIETNAM MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION CODE: 8340101. RESEARCH SUPERVISORS: PROF. KURATA HISASHI DR. DO XUAN TRUONG Hanoi, 2021 ABSTRACT Nowadays the living standard in Vietnam has increased, consumers’ behaviors toward food have shifted to high-quality food to protect their health.
Since the Vietnamese market provides imported fresh apples from different countries of origin, the consumers have to face a matter to decide which types of country-originated apples that they should choose for their own and family consumption. To be able to gain competitive advantages in the market, it is very important for the marketers/ retailers to understand the apple consumers well. Thus, this study investigated antecedents of consumer’s choice of fresh apples to explore how the Vietnamese consumers choose the origin of Envy apples between the USA and New Zealand which are the two biggest exporters of apples in Vietnam. The reason for choosing Envy apples is because this type of apple is very common and the most favorable by the buyers, they can be imported from only the two aforementioned countries of origin.
Besides descriptive analysis, this study applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to reduce the number of theoretical factors. Next, to test the hypotheses, a binary logistic model was used to investigate what specific factors affect Vietnamese consumers’ choice of New Zealand’s Envy apples compared to the U. The result of the study showed that the factors of Health consciousness and Food safety concern have statistically significantly positive influence on the consumer’s choice of New Zealand’s Envy apples; in contrast, the other factors including Promotion, Income and Country of origin image have negative impacts on their choice. Therefore, when consumers pay more attention to promotion, country image and their income, they more likely choose the USA’s apples.
The results can be used as recommendations for the marketing managers/ retailers to understand more about the consumer behaviors in the agricultural industry in order to have an effective marketing strategy and forecast the apple demand to meet the consumers’ needs and wants. By applying the findings into practices, that also helps improve the performance of the apple market in Vietnam. Keywords: Consumer’s behavior, consumer’s choice, food safety concern, price, perceived quality, perceived value, health consciousness, promotion, country of origin image. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This research was conducted by a student of the MBA program at Vietnam Japan University (VJU), a member of Vietnam National University.
First and foremost, I would like to have some words to express my journey as a master’s student at Vietnam –Japan University for over 2 years. I graduated from university some years ago. After graduation, I went into the workforce happily and enjoyably. However, after a few years of work, I found that I needed to boost up my knowledge and skills in business.
Then, I tried to look for many different types of MBA programs in Vietnam and overseas. I was lucky to have a friend who used to be a third –intake student of VJU. She introduced me to the school. After getting great support from VJU staff, I decided to join the MBA program.
Over the last 2 years, VJU has been my second home with great teachers, assistants, and classmates. It is an unforgettable memory of my school life. Every time, when I have struggled with any hard subject, I receive huge support from classmates and lecturers. We stand side by side to achieve our goals.
My master thesis could have never completed without support from whom I would like to sincerely thank to: First of all, I am deeply thankful to my professor supervisors Prof. Kurata Hishashi, Dr. Do Xuan Truong; advisors Prof. Yoshiki Matsui and Prof.
Motonari Tanabu for their expert guidance, understanding, and encouragement throughout my study and research. All Professors have instructed me step by step giving me valuable and meaningful advice and inspired critical ideas for my thesis. I also want to express my sincere thanks to the IPO staff of Yokohama National University who always helped me during four-month internship and the thesis journey. Last but not least, I would like to especially thank Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Doctor Yoshifumi Hino, JICA expert cum and other VJU’s MBA program teachers who devotedly provided insight and expertise that greatly advised and assisted me during the master program.
I cannot say more thanks to the MBA program’s Assistants who gave me extremely efficient support to complete this experience. I also thank my classmates of VJU’s MBA program for their invaluable assistance in helping me during the data collection process and others. TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLES i LIST OF FIGURES ii LIST OF ABBREVIATITION iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Background of the study 1 1.
Purposes of study 3 1. Scope of the study 4 1. Methodology of the study 4 1. Structure of the report 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6 2.
Concept of Consumer behavior 6 2. Consumer behavior model 7 2. Consumer buying decision-making process 7 2. Definition and previous studies 9 2.1 Food safety concern 9 2.5 Country of origin image 12 2.3 Conceptual framework and research hypotheses 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 17 3.
Sampling and Data collection 19 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 22 4. Exploratory Factor Analysis 23 4. Descriptive Statistics and Reliability Test 26 4. Revised model after EFA 28 4.5 Binary Logistic Regression 29 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 34 5.
Conclusions 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDIX 45 Appendix 1 45 Appendix 2 49 LIST OF TABLES Page Table 3. 1: Measurement scales 18 Table 4. 1: Sample profile 23 Table 4. 2: The result of Rotated Component Matrix 25 Table 4.
The result of reliability test 26 Table 4. The result of descriptive statistics 27 Table 4. Estimated logit model for consumer’s choice of Envy apples 30 Table 4. 6 : The result of hypothesis testing 32 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1.1: Vietnam’s apple consumption per capita from 2011 – 2017 (unit: kg) 2 Figure 2.1: Phillip kotler and keller (2015) model of consumer behavior 7 Figure 2.2: Kotler and keller (2012) - consumer buying decision-making process 7 Figure 2.3: The research framework (created by the author) 15 Figure 4.
1: Revised model after efa (created by the author) 28 Figure 4. 2: The model after analysis (created by the author) 32 2 LIST OF ABBREVIATITION COO: Country of origin COI: Country of origin image CI: Country image GDP: Gross Domestic Product EFA: Exploratory factor analysis 3 4 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study Vietnam is an emerging market in the East Asia region, with a total population of 96.5 million, 68 percent of the population between the ages of 15-64 (The World Bank in Vietnam, 2020). Vietnam has a low unemployment rate of about two percent.
The annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth over the last five years is over six percent. According to (The World Bank in Vietnam, 2021) Vietnam’s GDP reached $261 billion with a growth rate of seven percent, GDP per capita is $ 2,740 in 2019. Due to Covid-19 crisis, the 2020 GDP grew by only 2.9 percent in decades, although it was considered as one of the few best countries in the world. The nation’s economy is set to grow about 6.6 percent in 2021, to recover export-oriented manufacturing and robust the demand nationwide.
With rising income and living standards, Vietnamese consumers are increasingly concerned with the quality of their food, and tend to choose pesticide-free and high quality food. Fruits imported from foreign countries are commonly seen in Vietnam, although they are not cheap. According to a study conducted by the Vietnam Academy of Agriculture in 2017, an average household living in the two biggest cities Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City spends about 8-9% of their monthly food expenditure on fruits. As (The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, 2020) reported that fresh fruits were imported in Vietnam increasingly from 2016 to 2019 with the value of USD 1,371 and 2,493 million, respectively.
Among many types of fresh fruit imports, the imported fresh apples are one of the most preferred fruits among Vietnamese citizens. The imported apples in Vietnam have increased rapidly with a value of USD 66.54 million in 2017 compared to USD 51. The apple consumption per capita in Vietnam has risen over the years. According to the (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2017), it increased from 0.
The average apple import price was counted up to $897 per ton in 2019. The nation has especially imported apples with noticeably high prices ($1,608 per ton). The quantity of apples consumption is estimated 1 increasingly over the next few years due to Free Trade Agreements which Vietnamese government has opened to many foreign businesses from all over the world and also the consumer’s preference increases.1: Vietnam’s apple consumption per capita from 2011 – 2017 (unit: kg) Source “Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) According to (Export Genius, 2018) Vietnam is importing fresh apples from 18 foreign countries including USA, New Zealand, China, France, Canada, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Belgium, and Malaysia etc. The top three import sources of Vietnam supplied over 84% value of the apple fruit.
Vietnam imports apple fruit from the United States and New Zealand worth 42.57% share value in 2017. Nowadays the living standard in Vietnam has increased, consumers’ behaviors toward food have shifted to high-quality food to protect their health. Since the Vietnamese market provides imported fresh apples from many different countries of origin, the consumers have to face a matter to decide which types of country-originated apples that they should choose for their own and family consumption. To be able to gain the competitive advantages in the potential market of imported apples, it is very important for the 2 marketers/ retailers to understand the apple consumers well.
By understanding the important role of marketing in food consumptions, some researchers studied about antecedents of consumer’s purchase behaviors of fresh apples (Astuti et al., 2015; Ceschi et al., 2018, 2018; Gineikiene et al., 2016; Goossens et al. Especially, some studies have revealed that origin is related to consumers’ food choice (Götze & Brunner, 2019). However, consumers’ behaviors change in given contexts and individuals’ characteristics. The purchases of consumers are influenced by various factors including the buyers’ internal and external effects (Ramya & Ali, 2016).
There are inconsistencies among different categories of factors like socio-demographic, consumer psychographics. Thus, this study aims to investigate antecedents of consumer’s choice of fresh apples to explore how the Vietnamese consumers choose the origin of Envy apples between the USA and New Zealand, which are the two biggest exporters of apples in Vietnam. Envy apples are very common and the most favorable by the buyers, this apple can be imported from only the two aforementioned countries of origin. This study outcome is to provide insights into the ways marketers / retailers: (1) to forecast the demand of country of origin – related fresh apples to meet the consumers’ needs and wants; (2) to apply into marketing strategies; (3) and to help improve performance of the fresh apples market in Vietnam.
Purposes of study Based on the background study, the purpose of this research is to study the consumer’s behaviors in context of choosing imported Envy apples between the U.S and New Zealand. The result of the study is used as recommendations to support the marketers/retailers to understand more about Vietnamese consumers in order to have a marketing strategy effectively in the agricultural business. Research questions In this study, there are two research questions including: (1) What specific factors affect Vietnamese consumers’ choice of New Zealand’s Envy apples compared to the U.S’s Envy apples?