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

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