Document Type : Research Article
Authors
Agricultural Economic, Agricultural Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Abstract
Introduction: The consumer has an important situation in a market. Therefore, the adoption and success of developed marketing strategies, marketing mix, and other marketing programs among consumers strongly depend on the company’s ability to correctly understand consumer’s needs and expectations as well as on properly detection and identifying individual factors and stimuli influencing consumers when purchasing products for the purpose of reaching their satisfaction. Brand is a tool to position a product or a service with consistent image of quality to ensure the development of repeating customer preferences. Companies spend a lot of money and time on the branding and thus they need to evaluate the effect of brand on consumer buying behavior. Several factors influence the choice of a brand by consumers. In this study, attitudes toward branded rice and their interaction impact on consumer purchase behavior are assessed.
Materials and Methods: This study has used the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) has been derived from the classical comparative methods that John Stuart Mill theorized in 1843 and Ragin developed and popularized the method in his seminal work. Rather than estimate the net effects of single variables, QCA employs Boolean logic to examine the relationship between an outcome and all binary combinations of multiple predictors. The advantage of QCA is that it allows the researcher to find distinct combinations of causal variables that, in turn, suggest different theoretical pathways to given outcomes. Traditionally, QCA was considered appropriate for relatively small samples, but a QCA with larger samples is technically possible and can produce meaningful results. QCA might be considered an alternative to regression analysis for samples of any size. QCA is better than regressions when the links are complex, i.e., when they are anticipated to involve conjunctural causation, asymmetric links, and equifinality. QCA is also better than regressions when you try to estimate how much a particular factor influences the outcome. As the variables are metric, the appropriate variant of QCA is fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). To analyze the complex causality in the data, essentially you need to proceed in five steps. In the present study, in order to assess the effect of consumer attitude toward branded rice on purchasing of this kind of rice, was used questionnaire tool to collect data through simple random sampling method.
Results and Discussion: Results show that 27 combinations from different attitudes indicate 20 percent of consumer according to ABCDE combination are strongly agree with all attitude toward branded rice and their agreement cause to purchase branded rice. After this, the highest percentage is related to 16% consumers with AbcDE combination. This means that consumers’ agreement with better flavor, better packaging and availability of branded rice cause to purchase branded rice. Finally, 32 combinations have been collapsed into three combinations. In the first and second combination, high agreement with better flavor of branded rice and low agreement with better packaging of branded rice effect on branded rice consumption. In the first combination, these two conditions have been combined with low agreement with enhancing the social status by consuming branded rice that obtained combination explain 26 percent probability of branded rice consumption. In the second combination, these two conditions have been combined with low agreement with availability of branded rice that explain 30 percent probability of branded rice consumption. However, the third combination only by low agreement with overpriced of branded rice or in other words high agreement with proper price of branded rice explains 53 percent probability of branded rice consumption.
Conclusions: The Findings indicated that high agreement with proper price of branded rice with the highest rate of coverage effects on purchasing of branded rice. Therefore, it is suggested that producers of branded rice, in order to increase market share, offer better prices than their competitors. The combination of attitudes high agreement with desirable flavor of branded rice, low agreement with proper packaging of branded rice and low agreement with availability of branded rice with a 30% coverage rate is in the second place in influencing on the tend to buy branded rice. So, it is recommended that producers of branded rice have more attention to the flavor of rice, try to design packaging coordinated by needs of consumers and take action to better distribution of branded rice in the city.
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