Understanding Regional Product Characteristics and Consumers Purchasing them in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article deals with regional products in the Czech Republic. The goal is to examine the regional product characteristics, purchasing behavior when buying said products and basic segmentation criteria of their consumers. After an analysis of WoS and Scopus articles focusing on regional brands, we have concluded that areas explaining how consumers understand regional products (their characteristics), purchasing behavior and basic segmentation criteria are under-researched. Thus we have planned our research to tackle these areas. Our sample consists of 1050 respondents from the Czech Republic, gathered through questionnaire by professional agency Ipsos. We use Chi-Square test to test data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to test data distribution, Kruskal-Wallis test to test dependencies, and post-hoc pairwise comparison to test groups. Main results include: consumers assign different importance to regional product characteristics than regional brands communicate; most positive toward regional brands are age groups 36–45 and 26–35, university education, from Moravia or Silesia, least positive are youngest and oldest age group, with secondary education. We propose regional brands to utilize this knowledge when designing their communication.