Does Quality Matter for Fruit Purchase Decisions? A Hedonic Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the implicit price of the fruit quality attributes in Bangladesh. In total, 700 consumers were interviewed from twelve districts of Bangladesh during the period of July–October 2020 with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. The semi-log functional form of the regression model was estimated to find out the important quality attributes for a consumer purchase decision. The study revealed that both intrinsic and extrinsic attributes are important for imported and local fruit purchase decisions; however, “whole fresh” is the most important factor for fruit purchase decisions as consumers pay 19% less if the hog plum is whole rather than its other forms, i.e., sliced, pickled, etc. The purchase decisions of imported fruit over locally produced fruit differ by size and traceability information. The policy for the retail business of fruit is that the fruit may be traded as value-added products, such as slices, pickles, juice, and desserts, etc.

Keywords:

• Bangladesh
• fruit
• hedonic analysis
• quality attributes
• retail price

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledged all the respondents who actively participated in the survey of this research work and the enumerators for their cooperation in collecting the valuable information.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Research and Training Centre (RTC) of Patuakhali Science and Technology University (PSTU) for awarding a project entitled “Consumer preferences of local over imported fruits of Bangladesh” to Professor Dr. Afjal Hossain, Department of Marketing, PSTU, Bangladesh numbered RTC # 5921.