How do consumers face the decision to buy fair trade products? A marketing approach

ABSTRACT: In this paper we propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how consumer social orientation, the credibility of non-profit organisations, perceptions of fair trade products, and attitude towards the fair trade brand interact and affect the buying intentions of fair trade products in a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The model is built upon the fair trade marketing literature that has empirically explored consumer buying intentions. The findings show that consumer social orientation has the greatest effect on buying intentions, above consumer perceptions of fair trade products, the credibility of the trading non-profit organisations, and consumer attitude towards the fair trade brand. Actually, consumer attitude towards the fair trade brand has no significant effect on consumer buying intentions. The findings also demonstrate that the credibility of non-profit organisations only influences buying intentions indirectly through consumer perceptions of the functional utilities of fair trade products