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Introduction
Nowadays, healthy life and environmental protection is a main issue all around the world. This could be translate by practicing more sport, eating less junk food , and of course eating organic food which have a positive effects on the body and the environment. Before analyzing the organic market in Europe, France and china and the regulation around those products, it is important to understand several aspects that have an influence on the perception of a product like the country-of origin (does organic food and china go together). Indeed, the country-of origin can influence the perception and the consumer behavior but other phenomenon are important to take in count. So, after understanding what consumer behavior and the processing of the buying decision are, we will focus on consumer behavior toward organic food and what are the motivational factors underlie the purchasing of those food products and thus who buy them.
Ness (1982), Hong (1987) cited in Bruning, 1997, pp. 60). Like that French perfumes, Italian Boots will have a good image from the consumer point of view. So most studies of COO show that in consumer perception and consumer believe a product has a superior image when the country where the product are manufacturing has a good reputation (Hubl (1996), Leonidou et al. (1999), Kaynak et al. (2000) cited in Khmelnytska and Swift, 2010). So the COO effect could be more important for developing countries because the customer will use this parameter as a halo to infer the quality of an unknown foreign product (Han and Terpstra (1988) cited in Min Han, 1990 P.24), this mean that a customer will not use COO when he is familiar with the product. However, country-of origin have some limitation. Indeed, because of the globalization and among of competition, a lots of company produce their goods in different country to do some scale economy. So it is important to identify the country of design and the country of assembly. The problem is that many researches show that product assembled in newly industrialized countries have a negative image (Cordell (1992), Chao (1993) cited in Ahmed and dAstous, 1995). Then, country-of origin doesnt have an impact on consumer with a low sense of national loyalty. So those individuals wont respond on advertising focusing on a patriotic and a national theme, and the brand, the price, the store image will have a better impact on them rather than a home country made product (Bruning, 1997, P.62). COO is not the only element to take in consideration. Indeed, in the eyes of the consumer, COO could be diminish when supplementary dimension like the brand, price, warranty are provided regarding the product (Hastak and Honk (1991) cited in Ahmed and dAstous, 1995). Finally, a consumer will have a perception about one type of product in a country and not all products from the country will have the same perception. Consumers do not perceive all products from the country as being of equal quality (Etzel and Walker (1974), Hafhill (1980) cited in Min Han, 1990, P.24).
Consumer Behavior
Before understanding the consumer behavior toward organic food , it is fundamental to know what consumer behavior is and the steps in the buying decision. All consumer and industrial products are classified in four groups of product differentiation. First, homogeneous products which are those products where the consumer expects to be all the same (e.g. sugar, flour, raw material). Secondly, low differentiation products are those which consumers identify to have some added benefit and are prepared to pay more to have them (e.g. gasoline, toothpaste). Thirdly, medium differentiations are those products which the consumer perceive notably different and are agree to pay much
higher price (e.g. branded food item, computers). Finally, the last group is high differentiation products which are those product where consumers see very large difference between brands, suppliers and are agree to pay a premium price (e.g. cars, perfume, special chemicals) (Lampert and Jaffe, 1998) It is assumed that there are several steps on the decision of buying a product. The cycle starts with the need recognition. The need can be functional or psychological. The second step is the search for information. The consumer will look for a solution, a product, a brand to satisfy his need. This search can be passive (internal source, memory) or active (external source, article, information about the product (brand, COO)) (First and Brozina, 2009). The choice of the search will depend on the nature of the buying decision. The third step is the evaluation thanks to his entire search, to finish with the buying decision. All these steps are important and a post-purchase behavior will complement the cycle. There, the consumer will evaluate the performance of the product and if he is satisfied after using it, than he will buy again the same item. And the purchase about this specific product can become a pattern (Kotler (1997), Babin et al. (1994), Assael (1987), Szymanski and Henard (2001) cited in Watson, Viney and Schomaker, 2002). By identifying this buying decision, a company can determine what a consumer actually needs and translate this into a product offering (Nunes and Cespedes (2003) cited in Hollywood, Armstrong and Durkin, 2007, P.692). Regarding the food industry, consumer behavior appears to be very useful. Several research has been done on this subject, and a number of tools and ways of distinguish consumer behavior regarding food have been established. One of the ways is the segmentation. The segmentation will help a food marketer to know better their main consumer (Hollywood, Armstrong and Durkin, 2007). The segmentation is a method which divide consumer by group with the same needs, taste, characteristics Each segmentation will have their own marketing mix. The segmentation can be made by demographic, geographic, lifestyle, behavior factors. For example, concerning the lifestyle and the food industry, a research done by Brunso and Grunert (1998) recognize five lifestyle domains in terms of food shoppers (ways of shopping, cooking methods, quality aspects, purchasing motives and consumption situations) (McDonald and Dunbar (1995), Bruwer (2002), Buckley (2004) cited in Hollywood, Armstrong and Durkin, 2007 and Brunso and Grunert (1998) cited in Essoussi and Zahaf, 2009). This research defends that different consumer, who has different lifestyles regarding the food, will focus to different product characteristics even if they share the same values (Essoussi and Zahaf, 2009, P. 445).
Without the behavior segmentation, it is possible to use a different approach which uses consumer motivation to purchase and consumer decision-making styles. Thanks to those two factors it will be possible to predict future purchase behavior (Walsh (2001), cited in Hollywood, Armstrong and Durkin, 2007, P. 694). So the food market is changing, and different studies highlighted two major trends in todays consumption model: the need for convenience food and an increasing consciousness of the need for healthier eating patterns (Daly and Beharrell (1988), Arthley (1989), Gofton and Ness (1991), Steenkamp (1997) cited in Wier and Calversley, 2002, Pp 45-46).
value (Larue (2004), Verdurme (2002), Wier and Calvery (2002) cited in Essoussi and Zahaf, 2009 and Fotopoulos and Krystallis, 2002). However, there are different strategies to reduce the risk of the non consumption of OF and to build a better image against those products: those strategies are the brand loyalties, the store image and the service provided in the store, all the label references and the producer (Essoussi and Zahaf, 2009). Naspetti and Zanoli (2002) have done a research to understand the knowledge of consumer about OF product and the motivation towards those products. They conclude (as theoretically expected), that lower prices and better distribution will increase the demand of OF. Regarding the distribution, it could be interesting to increase the supply in supermarket to reach a bigger range of customer who doesnt have time to shop in special organic supermarket. About the price, today OF is considerate as a niche market, so it appears that a decrease in 20 per cent of the price of OF will move the niche position of organic product, so an augmentation of potential consumer (Wier and Calversley, 2002). Zanoli and Naspetti underline that at the same time, potential organic consumers want good tasting product as well as easy-to-use products which are not perishable. Finally, to improve the OF market, it will be interesting to improve the packaging and a better organic quality standards (Zanoli and Naspetti, 2002, P.652). It is significant to know for the marketer what is the profile of the buyer of OF. From a social-demographic profile, the buyer is more often a woman. The age factor does not seem to play an important role because the younger looks to be ready to buy that kind of product because more awareness of the environmental issue, but because of their lower purchasing power, they are not always able to buy it. But it is important to notice that a consumer of OF doesnt buy only just organic product, for example only 6.8% of organic consumer buy only organic product (Davis (1995), cited in Fotopoulos and Krystallis, 2002). That minor group shows to be interesting about OF for environmental concerns and political motives. The second group of consumer, who buy OF for health concern, looks to represent the bigger group of consumer but have a lower buying frequency (Wier and Calversley, 2002). Some researchers, points out that the main consumer of organic product in Europe is generally young (less than 45 years old) (Haest (1990), Grunert and Kristenser (1995), Menghi (1997), Wier and Smed (2000) cited in Wier and Calversley, 2002). It appears that the motivation of young consumer buying OF is environmental and health concerns, the older consumer will buy those product only for health reason (von Alvensleben and Altmann (1986), Bugge and Wandel (1995) cited in Wier and Calversley, 2002). Then, it appears that families with young children have the highest predisposition to buy OF and their motivation in on the health aspect of OF.
Apparently, families with teenager, followed by single-person households have the lower buying predisposition (Fricke and von Alvensleben (1997), Infood (1997, 1998), Land (1998) and Scan-Ad (1998), Wier and Smed (2000) cited in Wier and Calversley, 2002). Finally, it is interesting to mention that household income does not influence negatively the demand for organic products as one might suppose. Indeed, households with middle and higher income show a big enthusiasm about buying organic products (Haest (1990), Fricke (1996), Meier-Ploeger (1996) Menghi (1997) cited in Wier and Calversley, 2002). So, OF seem to have found its customer, which are still growing every day. The main problem regarding the OF looks to be the sale infrastructure. There is an increasing demand for organic products, but supply has to pass through a number of stages and channels before it reaches the consumers. Today these channels are not always sufficient, stable or flexible enough and may therefore result in bottlenecks (Wier and Calversley, 2002, P.58).