Evaluating the German demand for organic food in the majority of cases has been done by interviews, which are restricted by massive overestimation of consumers themselves. By using consumer panels, it is possible to survey actual consumer behaviour in combination with consumer attitudes and socio-demographic data and also by additionally requested consumers’ stated buying behaviour. Such methodology enables exposure and quantification of the gap between stated and actual buying frequency. Also the dimension of conventional products bought by mistake, while intending to get organics, can be identified. These results may give considerations for prospective survey design and adjustment of marketing policy

Hamm, Ulrich

Niessen, Jan

English

Organic Eprints

16th IFOAM Organic World Congress, Modena, Italy, June 16-20, 2008 Archived at http://orgprints.org/11998 346 Identifying the gap between stated and actual buying behaviour on organic products based on consumer panel data Niessen, J.1 & Hamm, U.2 Key words: Marketing research, consumer panel, consumer buying behaviour Abstract Evaluating the German demand for organic food in the majority of cases has been done  by  interviews,  which  are  restricted  by  massive  overestimation  of  consumers themselves.  By  using  consumer  panels,  it  is  possible  to  survey  actual  consumer behaviour in combination with consumer attitudes and socio-demographic data and also  by  additionally  requested  consumers’  stated  buying  behaviour.  Such methodology  enables  exposure  and  quantification  of  the  gap  between  stated  and actual  buying  frequency.  Also  the  dimension  of  conventional  products  bought  by mistake, while intending to get organics, can be identified. These results may give considerations for prospective survey design and adjustment of marketing policy. Introduction Over the last few years the organic market in Germany has shown remarkable growth. Nearly  all  big  supermarket  chains  and  many  conventional  food  processors  offer organic  products  and  competition  between  them  increases.  Thus,  a  professional marketing policy is necessary to survive in the market. However, market success also relies on  information  on relevant consumers’ buying behaviour to adjust marketing efforts towards consumer demand. Researchers in consumers’ behaviour usually face the problem that consumers tend to greatly overestimate their spending for organic food when approached in an interview survey (Fricke 1996, Michels et al. 2004). Based  on data  of a special consumer panel for organic products in Germany,  the objective of this contribution is to analyse and quantify the gap between stated and actual  buying  behaviour  in  the  case  of  organic  food  including  the  problem  of consumers’ buying conventional food for organic by mistake. The results may give important information for designing prospective surveys and developing or adapting marketing strategies within the organic sector. Material and Methods The research is based on data of a household panel from the year 2003 in Germany. This panel run by the market research company Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (GfK),  was  specially  designed  to  collect  data  of  private  households’  purchases  of organic  food  and  financed  by  Zentrale  Markt-  und  Preisberichtstelle  (ZMP)  in Germany. Every three months, 5,000 representative German households took part in                                                  1 University of Hohenheim, Institute for Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Markets, Schloss, Osthof-Süd, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany, E-Mail niessen@uni-hohenheim.de,  Internet www.uni-hohenheim.de 2 University of Kassel, Department of Agricultural and Food Marketing, Steinstr. 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany, E-Mail hamm@uni-kassel.de, Internet www.uni-kassel.de/alm 16th IFOAM Organic World Congress, Modena, Italy, June 16-20, 2008 Archived at http://orgprints.org/11998 347 screenings. Selection criteria for participation in the panel were the declaration that the household used to buy organic food at least once a month and had bought a minimum of one organic product in the current or past month. Thus it was secured that only (stated) organic buyers took part in the panel and not persons who bought organic products  without  knowing  or  intending  to.  In  context  of  the  screening,  panel households had to declare how often they normally buy organic products and what type of retail outlets in particular they use. The participating households alternated monthly  within  the  panel.  Hence,  bias  caused  by  extremely  high  purchases  of  a household was avoided. It could be achieved that more than 200 relevant households filled in a specially prepared diary on a monthly basis, listing all purchased organic products  including  brand,  organic  label,  type  of  retail  outlets,  volume,  price, certification number etc. Many plausibility checks were done to assure that the listed purchases were really done for organic products. So it was possible to evaluate the “organic  buying  behaviour”,  combined  with  the  stated  buying  behaviour  before participation on the panel and the households’ socio-demographic data. This paper focuses on two parts of a larger research project. The first part is to verify general differences between stated and actual buying frequency on organic products. In  the  second  part  we  analyse  the  problem  that  consumers  may  have  bought conventional products instead of the intended organic products but did not realise their mistake. As households had stated their buying frequency on retail outlets’ level, we want to show the mix up of buying conventional instead of organic quality exemplarily in the case of direct marketing (farmers’ markets and farm shops).  Results  To compare stated and actual buying frequencies, the latter were classified according to the stated classification within the screening questionnaire, as shown in Tab. 1. Observing  the  classified  frequencies  in  a  cross  tabulation,  the  percentages  of households’ stated and actual buying frequencies are comparable. Tab. 1: Comparison of stated and actual buying frequency (% of households)   Self estimated buying frequency of households   “How often do you buy organic products?” Actual buying frequency Once a month Several times a month Once a week Several times a week Actual overall None  60    50    41    23    46   Once a month  15    12    9    4    11   Several times a month  15    19    19    12    17   Once a week  5    6    10    9    7   Several times a week  5    13    22    52    18   Total  100    100    100    100    100   Stated overall  19    42    28    11    100   Example for reading: 60% of participants who estimated that they bought organics once a month did not buy at all (actual buying frequency = none). But only 15% of all households that stated they bought organics once a month really did. Of all organic-buyers 19% stated that they bought organics once a month, but only 11% really bought organics once a month (arrow). Source: Own calculation 16th IFOAM Organic World Congress, Modena, Italy, June 16-20, 2008 Archived at http://orgprints.org/11998 348 The percentage of non-buyers is shown in the first line of Tab. 1. A total of 46% of households did not buy organic products within a month although they stated doing so. The less the stated frequency in this group, the higher the percentage is of non-buyers, going up to 60% of the stated “once a month buyers”. The inside columns of Tab. 1 show the actual buying frequencies as percentages of the stated ones. The highest  consistency  between  stated  and  actual  frequencies  is  identified  within  the “several times a week buyers”; 52% of households of this group estimated their buying frequency  accurately.  Comparing  overall  values  of  stated  and  actual  frequencies (bottom line and right column), the stated percentages are considerably higher than the  actual  ones.  An  exception  is  the  “several  times  a  week  group”;  only  11%  of households  estimated  that  frequency,  but  18%  really  did  so.  On  the  other  hand however it is very astonishing that 23% of this group did not really buy organics once a month at all. We want to widen the above presented results with respect to the problem of buying conventional  food  instead  of  organic  by  mistake.  To  get  preferably  differentiated outcomes, producers’ marketing as a type of retail outlet  was divided into farmers’ markets and farm shops. Tab. 2 shows percentages of stated and real organic buying frequencies,  also  considering the  part  of non-organic  purchases, differentiated into four frequency-groups. The stated behaviour with respect to farmers’ markets is three times higher than it is really. Overall, nearly 46% stated but only 15% really bought at farmers’  markets,  whereas  6%  bought  conventional  qualities  assuming  they  were organic. At farm shops the gap between stated and actual behaviour is not that high. The overall part of conventional products however is very similar to organic products (both nearly 9%). Tab. 2: Comparison of stated and actual buying frequency at farmers’ weekly markets and shops including mistaken buying acts of non-organic products (%) “How often do you buy organic products at farmers’ markets?” Buying frequency in % of panel households Stated  Actual     Total  Organic  Non-Organic Once a month  9.3    6.6    4.4    2.8   Several times a month  14.4    5.8    3.6    2.2   Once a week  18.9    1.6    0.9    0.7   Several times a week  2.0    0.9    0.5    0.4   Households overall  45.5    15.0    9.4    6.1   “How often do you buy organic products in farm shops?” Once a month  6.6    6.8    3.6    3.4   Several times a month  8.0    6.0    2.8    3.2   Once a week  7.9    2.6    1.4    1.1   Several times a week  1.6    1.8    0.7    1.1   Households overall  24.1    17.1    8.5    8.9   Source: Own calculation The problem of purchasing conventional products by mistake, whilst intending to get organic products at producers’ direct marketing channels, has also been analysed on product-level and considering socio-demographic parameters. The highest rates have been located with eggs (66%) and beef (54%), but also potatoes (45%), bread (35%) 16th IFOAM Organic World Congress, Modena, Italy, June 16-20, 2008 Archived at http://orgprints.org/11998 349 and milk (29%) have been mixed up by high percentages. With all retail outlets and households this averages by 12%, whereas in producers’ direct marketing by 34%. Especially households of older consumers without children mixed up conventional with organic products.  Discussion and Conclusions The analysis of consumer panel data points out a big gap between stated and actual buying behaviour in the case of organic food. The results challenge the validity of the mass of interview-based surveys on the organic market. Whether social desirability or personal ignorance (Bryman 2004) about organic products are responsible for the gap between survey results and reality, is not to be answered by our study. However this would be worth attempting in further research studies and requires methodological enhancements in combining panel research and qualitative approaches to ascertain consumers’ insights whilst measuring their buying behaviour. The results should be regarded  when  interpreting  and  designing  consumer  surveys  on  buying  organic products. They lead us to emphasise the importance of panel research combined on household  level  with  interview  surveys  to  highlight  the  background  of  consumer behaviour in the case of organic food. A  gap  between  stated  and  actual  buying  frequencies  and  the  high  percentage  of mixing up buying conventional instead of organic quality is one part of discovering discrepancy between statement and behaviour. Also the expressed willingness to pay diverges  from  the  actual  spending,  as  results  of  a  Danish  consumer  panel  show (Millock et al. 2002). To survey actual buying behaviour in the case of organic food, methods  of  panel  research  seem  to  be  irreplaceable.  The  results  provide  the possibility to “calibrate” and enhance interview-based surveys and methods, which are necessary,  as  panel  surveys  are  very  costly.  However  methodical  approaches  to improve and further develop interview design (Groves and Heeringa 2006) should be considered to solve the problem of discrepancies between stated and actual buying behaviour regarding organic food. Acknowledgements We  are  indebted  to  the  Bundesanstalt  für  Landwirtschaft  und  Ernährung  which financed this research within the Bundesprogramm Ökologischer Landbau.  References  Bryman A. (2004): Social research methods. 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 592 p. Groves  R.  M.,  Heeringa  S.  G.  (2006):  Responsive  Design  for  Household  Surveys:  Tools  for Actively Controlling Survey Errors and Costs. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society). 3:439-457. Fricke  A.  (1996):  Das  Käuferverhalten  bei  Öko-Produkten.  Eine  Längsschnittanalyse  unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Kohortenkonzepts. Europäische Hochschulschriften, Vol. 1960, Frankfurt/Main, 368 p. Michels  P.,  Müller  H.,  Schmanke  A.  (2004):  Strukturen  der  Nachfrage  nach  ökologischen Nahrungsmitteln in Deutschland. In Goessler, R. (ed.): Materialien zur Marktberichterstattung (Band 53). ZMP, Bonn, 72 p. Millock K., Hansen L. G., Wier M., Andersen L. M. (2002): Willingness to Pay for Organic Foods: A Comparison  between  Survey  Data  and  Panel  Data  from  Denmark, http://www.orgprints.org/73/ (accessed 2007-09-29), 25 p. 

Identifying the gap between stated and actual buying behaviour on organic products based on consumer panel data

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