''Purchase of Organic Products in Discount Supermarkets in Dublin''
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1 ‘’Purchase of Organic Products in Discount Supermarkets in Dublin’’ Dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Msc Marketing At Dublin Business School Student: Tai Pui Yee (IKY) (10375210) Supervisor: Michael J Maguire Msc Marketing August, 2018 2 Declaration of Ownership Declaration: I, Tai Pui Yee, declare that this research is my original work and that it has never been presented to any institution or university for the award of Degree or Diploma. In addition, I have referenced correctly all literature and sources used in this work and this work is fully compliant with the Dublin Business School’s academic honesty policy. Signed: Date: 20th August 2018 3 Acknowledgments I thank various people for their contributions to this dissertation. I am immensely grateful to my supervisor, Michael J Maguire, for his comments, guidance and patience during the entire research process. He always provides me the effective solutions to work out the way as planned. All his efforts greatly strengthen the readability, logic and credibility of my first dissertation, as well as minimizing the unnecessary procedures. This smoothly completed research project cannot be achieved without his insightful contribution. I would also like to show my gratitude to all the participants involved in the research for their precious time and valuable insights, giving rise to the findings of this research. My peers’ support and encouragement have been motivating me when I felt frustrated doing research at midnight. I would also like to extend my appreciations to all my co-workers and managers for kindly giving me extra time off and working around my schedule in the past year of my study. Finally, I wish to thank my family for the remote support throughout my study. 4 Abstract Ireland sees the greatest growth of organic market in Europe with a positive future outlook. At the same time, the growth of discounter supermarkets in Ireland is crowned the top among multiple western countries with a growing market share, greatly altering the consumers’ shopping habits in the country. Therefore, this research is concerned with ‘’Purchase of Organic Products in Discount Supermarkets in Dublin’’. It aims to find out the factors that drive Irish consumers’ purchase of organics products in discounters. This finding is conductive to their ambitious business goals. Based on this main research question, two main focuses – commercial and environmental areas – form the sub-research questions as well as running through the entire research. This research is conducted in Ireland by quantitative method and using questionnaire for data collection. The sample size consists of 101 respondents who are above 18 years old. The findings are analysed by using Microsoft Excel. The result shows the five features of discounters contribute positively to purchasing organic products in discount supermarkets. They are their price, brands / products, product diversity, shopping environment and shop location. Last but not least, recommendations are made in the end of the research to provide incisive directions to the retailers. 5 Content Page Declaration of Ownership .................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................................. 3 Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 4 Content Page ...................................................................................................................................... 5 List of tables........................................................................................................................................ 7 List of figures ...................................................................................................................................... 8 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 9 Research Question and sub-research questions ......................................................................... 13 Research Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 14 Research Hypotheses ................................................................................................................... 14 Reasons for studying this supermarket format in this country .................................................. 14 Significance of this study .............................................................................................................. 15 2. Literature Review ..................................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 16 2.2 Definition of organic products ............................................................................... 16 2.3 Any significant differences between product/service offered by German discounters and that by Irish indigenous supermarkets relating to driving the purchase of organic range? .......................................................................................... 17 2.31 Brand or Product – Private Labels (PLs) or National Brands (NBs) ....................... 18 2.32 Diversity of product Assortment ........................................................................... 19 2.33 Price....................................................................................................................... 19 2.34 Shopping Environment .......................................................................................... 22 2.35 Shop Location ........................................................................................................ 23 2.4 To identify the effective strategies that marketers can carry out in order to attract more people to consume organic products in discounters? .......................... 23 2.5 Is the environmental concern related to Irish consumers’ behaviour towards the purchase of organic food? ............................................................................................ 26 2.51 The theory of consumer behavior......................................................................... 26 2.52 Environmental concern in relation to Irish consumers’ behaviour towards the purchase of organic food .............................................................................................. 27 2.6 To identify the opportunities to implement environmental plan to influence consumers’ behaviour, resulting to contributing the business’s profit. .................... 30 2.7 Conclusion of Literature Review ............................................................................ 31 3. Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 32 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 32 3.2 Research Design ..................................................................................................... 33 6 3.21 Research Philosophy ............................................................................................. 33 3.22 Research Approach ............................................................................................... 34 3.23 Research Strategy ................................................................................................. 35 3.24 Time Horizon ......................................................................................................... 36 3.3 Sampling - Selecting Respondents ......................................................................... 36 3.4 Data Collection ....................................................................................................... 37 3.5 Data Analysis Method ............................................................................................ 39 3.6 Research Ethics ....................................................................................................... 40 3.7 Conclusion of Methodology ................................................................................... 40 4. Findings ..................................................................................................................................... 41 4.1 Data Presentation................................................................................................... 41 4.11 Demographics and basic organics shopping habits ............................................. 41 4.12 Commercial drives of organics purchase ............................................................. 44 4.13 Environmental drives of organics purchase ........................................................ 55 4.2 Summary of Findings .............................................................................................. 60 5. Discussion of Findings .............................................................................................................. 61 5.1 Sub Research Question One ................................................................................... 62 5.2 Research Objective