Segmentation of Coffee Consumers Using Sustainable Values: Cluster Analysis on the Polish Coffee Market

Abstract

Producers and retailers are the driving force behind the adoption of the idea of sustainability. It has been found that while preparing their product range offer, many still pay attention to the same set of criteria: size of the customers’ earnings, how often they shop, and how much they buy when shopping. In general, sustainable values applied by consumers in their purchasing decisions are rarely taken into account in consumer segmentation. The aim of this study is to recognize if values such as environmental protection, producers’ ethical behavior, fair trade or maximizing the utility function of consumption are important factors in the purchasing process of coffee and if they can be used as segmentation variables. The discussed findings come from a standardized online survey conducted on a sample of 800 Polish coffee consumers in July 2018. The obtained results are discussed by employing multi-dimensional analyses, such as exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and cluster analysis (CA). In consequence, six segments of coffee consumers are identified and described: “responsible, aspiring to be connoisseurs”, “loyal coffee enthusiasts”, “pragmatic users”, “coffee laypersons”, “sophisticated connoisseurs”, and “consumerists, connoisseurs, but not at any price”. Among the identified segments, the most often indicated sustainable consumption values refer to “responsible, aspiring to be connoisseurs”, and the least often to “consumerists, connoisseurs, but not at any price”. The conclusions may be used by manufacturing and trade enterprises operating in the coffee market to respond to the identified needs and expectations of consumers.

Coffee in capsules consumers’ behaviour: a quantitative study on attributes, consequences and values

“…Rational Benefits involve consumers’ perception that CIC’ consumption avoids waste, saves time and money and contributes to the environment. However, Abuabara et al (2019) and Maciejewski et al (2019) studied consumers’ concerns on the environmental problems derivated of CIC’ consumption. Thus, although consumers perceive that CIC consumption avoids coffee waste, and saves time, it is worth to note that CIC has more aggregated value, and as a consequence, is more expensive per unit and that the use of capsules generates recycling needs (Almeida and Spers, 2020; Filimonau et al , 2019).…”

The Ethically Conscious Flower Consumer: Understanding Fair Trade Cut Flower Purchase Behavior in Germany

“…More recent studies emphasize good consumer knowledge or familiarity with fair trade and ethical products [46][47][48][49]. However, there is concept confusion amongst consumers due to an overwhelming presence of labels [50][51][52].…”

Environmentalism and Polish Coal Mining: A Multilevel Study

“…This reflects the assumption that "people in general do not wish to harm the environment" [20] (p. 27). The problem is that, even though most individuals want to live in an unspoiled environment [21], only some of them behave in environmentally responsible ways [22]. That is because people do not want to be bothered with extra effort, are unwilling to modify their lifestyle and relinquish their high standard of living, or simply do not think that their individual action will have much of an impact in the overall scheme of things.…”