Abstract
Farmers’ markets have received much attention in many countries, and the amount of research on farmers’ markets is gradually increasing. The consumption process of consumers at farmers’ markets include both economic and social aspects, but most past studies have only focused on a single aspect. The economic perspective mainly focuses on transaction issues such as purchase motives, quality, satisfaction, purchase behavior, and post-purchase behavior, whereas the social perspective focuses on the social relations and psychological feelings created when consumers go to markets. This study aimed to integrate the economic and social perspectives and analyze the relationships among product performance evaluation, relational capital, repurchase intention, and subjective well-being of consumers at farmers’ markets after their purchase experiences. I chose three recurrent farmers’ markets in Taiwan, obtained 358 valid samples, and performed structural equation modelling analysis. The results indicated that the economic product performance exerted a significant and positive influence on repurchase intention, but its influence on subjective well-being was not significant. In contrast, the social relational capital was found to be a positive and significant factor of both repurchase intention and subjective well-being. On the whole, relational capital is more important than product performance. The suggestions for practice were as follows. First, farmers’ markets have economic and social value and are thus worth being promoted by government agencies. Second, the managers of farmers’ markets should implement a set of management mechanisms to ensure product performance and also create a market atmosphere that facilitates social interactions between farmers and consumers.
Highlights
Under the influence of global agri-food systems, local production for local consumption has become an alternative route of agricultural development aside from mainstream agriculture in many countries [1], its methods including community-supported agriculture, farm-to-school programs, culinary tourism, and farmers’ markets
This study aims to integrate the two aforementioned perspectives (“consumption-oriented economic interactions” and “leisure-oriented social interactions”) and combine two economic constructs, namely, the market performance evaluation and repurchase intentions of consumers, and two social constructs, namely, the relational capital formed by consumers at farmers’ markets and their subjective well-being, into a single research framework
Looking at the individual latent variables, I found that female participants expressed higher product performance evaluations, relational capital, and repurchase intention than male participants after their purchase experiences, and they perceived greater subjective well-being than male participants on the whole
Summary
Under the influence of global agri-food systems, local production for local consumption has become an alternative route of agricultural development aside from mainstream agriculture in many countries [1], its methods including community-supported agriculture, farm-to-school programs, culinary tourism, and farmers’ markets. Farmers produce and sell their products themselves, reducing food miles and carbon footprints, being friendly to the environment. In this way, consumers can obtain fresh and safe local agricultural products. Farmers’ markets, which have advantages in site conditions and local products and possess community relations from the place of production to the dining table, are said to be crucial platforms in implementing local production for local consumption and have the ability to create agricultural production-sales models that take both environmental protection and friendly relationships into account
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