Survey of Consumers’ Responsiveness to Small-Scale Producers’ Marketing in the Northern Hungary Region

Konrád Kiss,Gábor Koncz,Dóra Nagy-Demeter,Csaba Ruszkai,Mercédesz Németh,Bálint Varró

doi:10.18096/tmp.2019.01.03

Abstract

The purpose of our study is to survey the marketing issues of small-scale food production and short supply chains (SSCs) from the consumers’ aspects, and to give insight into the effectiveness and potential of SSC marketing. The paper presents the result of a wide online consumer survey with the participation of more than 1000 consumers, mostly from the Northern Hungary region. According to our experiences, the most effective „marketing instrument” was the personal contact with producers, communication with relatives, and acquaintances. One-third part of our sample could be motivated by (this kind of) marketing and had more willingness to pay for small-producers’ goods.

Highlights

Nowadays, the various problems arising from global trade have become well known
One-third part of our respondents purchases from local producers up to maximum of EUR 16 (HUF 5000) in an average month. Another third bought between EUR 16 and 31 (HUF 5001-10000); more demand is generated only by the remaining part of the customers
Nearly half of the respondents felt it a problem, that they did not have sufficient information on the supply of local producers. This is related to the results of Szabó and Juhász (2012) that points to the lack of marketing activities

Summary

Introduction

The largest market shares are held by great retail chains selling mass products. In this way, the trade of global products is gradually eliminating the national – local – element from production (Bylok 2014), and this may affect the local trade of consumer goods and services negatively (Kacz et al 2017). In Hungary, for example, most vegetable and fruit growers still produce on their own, in an unorganized manner; their trade is exposed, the degree of integration is weak (Horváth 2010). For this reason, small producers who cannot benefit from economies of scale may be forced out of the mass

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Conclusion