Assessing the Influence of Tangible and Intangible Seafood Characteristics on Consumers’ Purchasing Decisions

Seafood consumption in U.S. is expected to grow over the next years for various reasons. First,as supply increases, due mostly to imports and aquaculture, seafood becomes a more affordable diet alternative. Furthermore because of its’ purported health benefits increasingly recognized by consumers, seafood demand is expected to increase. Concurrently, consumers increasingly care about a range of seafood characteristics beyond tangible attributes such as packaging (i.e. fresh or frozen) and price. Sustainability and the environmental impacts of aquaculture are important also. Understanding which attributes consumers prefer can provide valuable insights for the U.S. seafood industry. However, research on this topic is limited. This study’s dataset is obtained from an online survey administered to Kentucky and South Carolina consumers. An ordered probit model is utilized to analyze consumer importance ratings of various seafood attributes. The present study utilizes an ordered probit formulation to examine the effect of various consumer characteristics on their seafood preferences. The results indicate that, demographic characteristics and supporting local foods have a significant effect on consumer preferences for fresh and wild-caught seafood products. However, they had a smaller effect on increasing the probability that environmental statements influence purchasing decisions