Australasian Marketing Journal 24 (2016) 135140

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Australasian Marketing Journal

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a m j

Who shops at local farmers markets? Committed loyals, experiencers

and produce-orientated consumers
Lisa McNeill *, Olivia Hale
University of Otago

A R T I C L E

I N F O

Article history:
Received 19 November 2015
Accepted 18 January 2016
Available online 19 February 2016
Keywords:
Farmers markets
Lifestyle segmentation
Food
Consumption motivation
Consumer behaviour

A B S T R A C T

Lifestyle segmentation, used to explore consumer attitudes, interests, opinions and values, is applied to
a local farmers market (the Otago farmers market, in New Zealand) in order to build a prole of consumer motivations and behavioural drivers beyond simple demographic data. Prior research indicates a
growing need for studies that seek to understand the intangible aspects of food selection and consumption. Farmers market consumers are often treated as a homogenous group, with purchase and consumption
decision making assumed to rest with tangible aspects of produce on offer, such as its organic nature or
lower cost. The overall experience of the consumer within the food purchase environment is often overlooked. The current study nds that three distinctly different consumer segments exist within the farmers
market context, with those concerned with the tangible aspects of produce being the smallest group of
consumers. Two consumer segments driven by differing experience-related motivations give the greatest insight into consumer behaviour in a farmers market context, with committed, loyal consumers being
concerned with relationships with sellers and producers, and experience orientated consumers motivated by the opportunity to interact with other farmers market attendees.
2016 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C H I N E S E

A B S T R A C T

Ot
ago

2016 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Famers markets continue to rise in popularity, particularly in
urban settings, where the concept of buying food directly from the
producer has many perceived consumer benets (La Trobe, 2001).
This short supply chain model, with its implied positive implications for the environment and local economies, appears to have
achieved considerable consumer trust and acceptance in the food
industry (Migliore et al., 2014). Indeed, where current concerns in
the food industry are raised (such as genetic modication of food

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +6434795758; fax: +6434798172.

E-mail address: lisa.mcneill@otago.ac.nz (L. McNeill).

products), supermarkets rather than producers/growers tend to be

the focus for negative consumer reactions (Pearce and Hansson,
2000). In New Zealand, farmers markets are signicant sources of
rural economic development (Guthrie et al., 2006). In addition, the
famers market offers the opportunity for a region to showcase itself
and local products (ela et al., 2007; Plummer et al., 2005) and provides signicant regional identity (Boyne et al., 2003; Thomas, 2004).
2. The consumer benets of famers markets
Most food-related research focuses on retail stores such as supermarkets, or restaurant settings, particularly with regard to urban
environments (McKinnon et al., 2009). Studies of farmers markets
tend to assess the offerings in relation to tangible aspects of the goods

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.01.003
1441-3582/ 2016 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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L. McNeill, O. Hale / Australasian Marketing Journal 24 (2016) 135140

on offer, such as price and product availability or variability and nutritional status of offerings (e.g. McGuirt et al., 2011; Lucan et al.,
2015). Fewer studies assess the beliefs consumers hold towards
famers markets and their reasons for both attending, and for purchasing food products within them. Where studies of consumer
perceptions do exist, consumers have tended to be aggregated together to provide an overview of reasons for attending these markets,
and consumers directed towards assessing the aforementioned tangible aspects of the good on offer (e.g. La Trobe, 2001; Migliore et
al., 2014). Overall, food based literature devoted to discussing the
farmers market context regards it as a mechanism for providing
increased access to fresh produce in areas where these products are
not normally as freely available (i.e. non-rural areas) (Lucan et al.,
2015; McKinnon et al., 2009). Tourism literature, however, provides an alternative perspective through examination of culinary
tourist motivations, suggesting that food, as a major element of any
tourist product, can provide opportunities for relaxation, learning,
communication and entertainment within the food procurement
experience (ela et al., 2007; Plummer et al., 2005). Where attendance at a farmers market can be treated as an experience, the
wider implications of culinary tourism attributes are likely to be
relevant in the overall consumer perceptions and evaluation of a
farmers market, irrespective of the local nature of most farmers
market visitors.
3. The farmers market lifestyle
Where the economic benets of farmers markets to regions are
well documented, these markets also offer unique social benets to
communities, as well as to individual consumers (Hofmann et al., 2008).
Prior research has addressed the role of farmers markets in satisfying moral issues that many consumers now associate with food
production and supply (Aslet, 2002; La Trobe, 2001), increased demand
for observable quality indicators in food (such as the ability to meet
the producer) (Guthrie et al., 2006; Youngs and Holden, 2002) and
the degree of social cachet associated with simply being seen to purchase in a farmers market setting (Fernandez-Armesto, 2001; Guthrie
et al., 2006). These factors, combined, relate to the use of famers
markets by consumers in the construction of a personal lifestyle and
identity associated with that (Schaefer and Crane, 2001).
4. Farmers markets and lifestyle segmentation
Lifestyle segmentation, when compared to traditional demographic segmentation (such as age or gender categories) offers the
opportunity to understand groups of consumers in terms of their
attitudes, interests, opinions, values and consumption preferences
(Vyncke, 2002). In this way, lifestyle segmentation allows the attitudes and motivations (and thus behavioural drivers) of specic
groups of consumers to be uncovered, rather than proling the
average consumer (Nie and Zepeda, 2011). In the context of farmers
markets, factors such as the relationship between the seller (often
the producer) and the consumer, as well as relevant situational
factors are suggested as likely to have a greater effect on consumer behaviour than socio-demographic factors such as age, gender
and education (Migliore et al., 2015). Recent studies suggest a need
for greater understanding of intangible factors in farmers market
purchasing, such as familiarity of the consumer with the shopping experience, cultural values and personal food shopping desires
(Lucan et al., 2015). Where farmers market food experiences can
be said to be inseparable from local culture and thus authentic and
unique to the host community (Plummer et al., 2005), it is clear that
consumer behaviour in a farmers market context should also be
examined in a region-specic fashion.
When groups of consumers are clustered into segments, differentiations between the segments are generated through the total

conguration of benets sought, rather than individual benets

(Haley, 1968). The clusters that emerge will thus be groups of consumers who place corresponding degrees of importance on the
various benets under study. Farmers market consumers are often
treated as a fairly homogenous market; simply all those who purchase at farmers markets and it is often assumed that these
consumers all seek the same benets (such as organic produce,
healthy food choices or low prices). Indeed, it is noted that classifying consumers into groups based on psychographic, attitudinal
or behavioural characteristics often over simplies the issue under
study (Watkins et al., 2015). Lifestyle segmentation however, which
allows segmentation of consumers within a specic regional farmers
market, into distinct groups based on the benets that they seek
from that farmers market, allows different tactics to be incorporated into farmers market strategy, to cater towards consumers who
seek particular benets such as a range of activities, events or facilities that enhance their market experience.
5. Methodology
5.1. Pilot survey
A pilot survey was administered to twenty consumers at a regional farmers market in a major New Zealand city. Ten general
questions, focussing on why consumers shopped at the market and
what kind of products they hoped to purchase, were included. The
pilot survey allowed the nal set of survey variables to be conrmed, by examining the relevance of scale items drawn from
existing literature on farmers market attendance.
5.2. Survey construction
Three main constructs were utilised in the survey for the purposes of the current study: the rst two constructs were related to
benets that consumers seek, and the third related to satisfaction.
The rst benet segmentation construct was labelled Reasons for
attending the Farmers Market, and, in order to construct the scale,
attributes were identied from existing literature on farmers markets
(Guthrie et al., 2006; Hossain et al., 2002; Lawson et al., 2008; Wolf,
1997). Prior research identies the general reasons consumers attend
farmers markets; thus the current study sought to determine
whether differing segments of consumers would show a propensity towards different sets of these attributes. The factor analysis
performed on the scale provided an alpha of 0.725 for reliability
(using Cronbachs alpha).
The second construct, labelled Evaluation of the produce available at the farmers market was adapted from Bruner et al. (2001),
using the scale Product Evaluation (Food). This scale, developed
by Perracchio and Tybout (1996), measures the degree to which a
consumer positively evaluates, has interest in buying, and would
recommend items to a friend. The reliability of the scale was alpha
of 0.95. The third construct, Degree of satisfaction with the shopping experience at the Farmers Markets, used the scale Satisfaction
(Generalized) by Westbrook and Oliver (1981). The scale consisted of 12 seven-point Likert items designed to measure a
consumers degree of satisfaction with a product that has recently
been purchased. The scale has a reliability alpha of 0.95, and was
factor analysed to ensure unidimensionality.
5.3. Sample
The sampling design used for the population was a singlestage procedure, visitors to the Otago Farmers Markets on two
Saturday mornings. The selection process for individuals involved
a convenience sample, as respondents were intercepted at the
farmers market based on their attendance on that day. The sam-

L. McNeill, O. Hale / Australasian Marketing Journal 24 (2016) 135140

pling plan did not include stratication, as the population size was
undened. A sample of 200 respondents was collected, exceeding
the requirements for using the cluster analysis technique to achieve
valid results (Hair et al., 1998). Similar sample sizes have been used
throughout the farmers markets literature: e.g. Govindasamy et al.
(1998) conducted a consumer survey of 336 respondents; a slightly
larger sample size of 446 farmers market customers was obtained by Connell et al. (2008); and a sample size of 404 consumers
was used by Wolf (1997).
The survey was administered in person, with respondents given
the survey to ll out at the time of intercept. To qualify for participation, respondents were 18 years or over. In order to decrease
potential bias of respondents, the surveys were not administered
on a competing festival or event day in the city.
5.4. Analysis
Data collected from the survey were coded and analysed using
SPSS. Respondents rated different aspects of the Otago Farmers
Market on three different seven point Likert type scale questions,
and the data produced from these types of scales are assumed to
be interval, thus allowing mean scores to be compared through
cluster analysis. Factor analysis was performed on survey variables as preliminary analysis in order to reduce the original variable
set into a representative cluster variate for subsequent cluster analysis. Frequencies for each variable were rst examined to determine
their variances, and the variables to include for analysis decided upon.
A two-step clustering approach was used, where hierarchical
cluster analysis was used to determine the potential number of clusters, then non-hierarchical k-means clustering to form respective
clusters. A dendrogram was derived from the hierarchical cluster
analysis, and used to interpret the cluster solution in terms of the
number of clusters, using the Wards linkage method. The clusters
derived from cluster analysis were then subjected to proling using
cross-tabs in order to label the segments in terms of demographics. Nominal data such as gender, age, occupation and residence were
the variables used to prole the clusters.
6. Results
6.1. Respondent characteristics
A review of the general characteristics of the respondent sample
indicates that those 1825 years old make up 45% of the sample, followed by 26 to 35 years (18%) and 4655 years (17%). The majority
of the sample are female (59%). The vast majority of the sample are
New Zealanders (75%), and nearly all of the sample are local residents (90%).
6.2. Factor analysis
The rst stage of the data analysis involved conducting exploratory factor analysis in order to achieve data reduction for subsequent
analysis. Due to the large number of variables included in the segmentation data, it was deemed appropriate to determine whether
there was a smaller subset of factors that could represent the original variable set. Upon analysis of frequencies data for each variable,
it became apparent that very little variance in the negative variables
(such as I feel bad about my decision to shop at the Market) was
present. A preliminary factor analysis was run including these variables, which gave a six factor solution. All the variables related to
negative attitudes towards the market loaded on a single factor, and,
with all of them also exhibiting such low variance, the ve negatively oriented variables were removed from the analysis. Two other
variables were also removed from the analysis upon examination of
frequency data; these variables exhibited a very small level of vari-

137

Table 1
KMO and Bartletts Test of Sphericity.
KaiserMeyerOlkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy
Bartletts Test of Sphericity
Approx. chi-square
Df
Sig.

.866
2123.106
231
.000

ance and were thus considered irrelevant to the factor solution.

Variables omitted were The produce at the Market is fresher than at
other retail outlets and I can nd exactly what I need shopping at
the Market.
A factor analysis was run on the remaining variables relating to
benets sought and satisfaction. The second attempt at factor analysis pre-specied the model to extract ve factors as a result of
examining the factor loadings of the previous analysis. This gave signicant improvement on the solution, evident in the fact that each
variable loaded on a distinct factor, and all the loadings were relatively high on their factors (all loadings exceeded 0.4). Common factor
analysis was used due to the primary objective of the factor analysis
being to identify the latent dimensions that could be represented by
the original variable set. This was also justied by the fact that only
shared variance was of interest, and little was known about the specic and error variance. Principal Axis Factoring was used as this
method allows correlation between the factors (which was likely to
occur due to the similarity between items in the scale; all related to
benets and satisfaction constructs). An oblique rotation (Direct
Oblimin) was used due to the inter-correlated nature of the factors.
The Measure of Sampling Adequacy showed signicant probability of intercorrelations among the variables at 0.866 (refer Table 1
below). The communalities of the factors were also all values above
0.3, signifying a reasonable amount of variation in all the variables explained by the factor solution. The total variance explained
is not relevant to the current results, since common factor analysis is attributed to the factors being correlated, thus sums of squared
loadings cannot be added to ascertain total variance.
Upon examination of the pattern matrix, the ve factors were
assigned labels according to the variables that loaded on them, placing
greater emphasis on those variables with greater loadings. Table 2
displays the factor labels that represent each of the derived factors.
The factor scores that were generated through the factor analysis were computed for each subject in order to replace the original
set of variables, as the objective of this analysis was to create a
smaller set of variables to make up the cluster variate. In this way,
each respondent now had factor scores relating to each of the ve
new variables described above. Validation of the factor analysis
results was required in order to verify the underlying structure that
was determined. The sample was split into two equal groups and
the factor models were rerun on each group to test for their comparability. Both the factor solutions were found to be relatively
comparable in terms of factor loadings across the variables.
6.3. Reliability of the ve factor model
The factor model required reliability testing in order to ensure
that the constructs within the model constituted an appropriate scale.

Table 2
Factor labels.
Factor number

Factor label

Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Factor 4
Factor 5

Appeal of produce
Variety of produce
Satisfaction of shopping experience
Value of produce
Likelihood to repeat purchase at the Market

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L. McNeill, O. Hale / Australasian Marketing Journal 24 (2016) 135140

Table 3
Final cluster centres.
Cluster

Appeal
Variety
Satisfaction
Value
Repeat

.67907
.64750
.66699
.52788
.40826

.16073
.63524
.07747
.47425
.14470

1.21384
.06585
1.37431
.15250
1.27632

Cluster 1 scored highest on all ve factors, indicating that this respondent group
rated all perceived aspects of the farmers market the most favourably compared
to other groups. Cluster 2, on the other hand, scored lower on all factors but was
comparable to cluster 3. In terms of Appeal of produce, cluster 2 scored slightly
higher than cluster 3, as was the case for Satisfaction of shopping experience and
Likelihood to repeat purchase at the Market. Cluster 3 scored higher than cluster
2 (but not cluster 1) in terms of Variety of produce and Value of produce.

Cronbachs alpha, which is a reliability coecient that assesses the

reliability of a scale, was computed for the ve factors (see Table 3
below). This produced a result of 0.725, which is above the lower
limit specied by Hair et al. (1998).
6.4. Cluster analysis
A hierarchical cluster analysis was run on the data using the ve
factors established through the factor analysis as the cluster variate.
Hierarchical methods were used solely to determine the number
of clusters by minimising within-group variation and maximising
between-group variation. Squared Euclidean Distance was used as
the distance measure. This is the recommended measure for the
Wards method of clustering, which was the agglomerative method
used. The hierarchical clustering produced a dendrogram which revealed four clusters; however one of the clusters was signicantly
small and thus could be classed as outliers in the data. A three cluster
solution was thus deemed appropriate to use in the subsequent
k-means non-hierarchical cluster analysis.
K-means cluster analysis was then run using the three cluster
centres that were shown by the hierarchical analysis as the initial
seed points. The nal cluster centres were then examined in order
to label the clusters (see Table 3 below). An ANOVA was performed to examine the differences between the mean factor scores
of each cluster according to their responses to each variable in the

factor solution (Table 4). A Tukey HSD post-hoc test was used to determine where these differences lie, which showed that there were
differences in cluster means for all factors other than Value of
Produce (for which clusters 2 and 3 did not differ signicantly).
These observations indicate that cluster 1 clearly represents those
consumers of the market that are highly loyal and hold extremely
positive views of the market offerings in comparison with other retail
outlets. This cluster is likely to be regular consumers of farmers
markets, who prefer the markets compared to other retail outlets.
Consumers in cluster 2 do not have such an attachment to the
market, but are relatively well satised with their experiences at
the market and rate the produce relatively highly, and like cluster
1 likely to attend the market to purchase produce on a regular basis.
Consumers within this cluster are likely to go to the markets from
time to time, and are primarily interested in the experiential aspect
rather than simply coming to buy produce. Cluster 3 consumers are
more attracted to the aspects of the market to do with the availability of produce at the markets and believe that it may be better
value than other retail outlets. Rather than going to the markets for
the experience, the consumers within this cluster may be more interested in coming simply to buy what they believe to be better
produce at better prices than supermarkets or other grocery outlets.
Clusters 1 and 2 were of similar sizes (n = 79 and 77, respectively),
and cluster 3 was relatively smaller (n = 34). A tentative description of the three clusters based on the characteristics described above
and the cluster membership is summarised in Table 5.
6.5. Proling the clusters
Demographics were used to prole the clusters and examine any
signicant differences in terms of age, gender, occupation, country
of origin and city of residence. Cross-tabulations were performed
on the data, which revealed that the three clusters only differed signicantly across the dimensions of gender and occupation. The
Pearson Chi-Square value for gender is 0.01, meaning that the differences in gender between clusters can be dened as signicant.
The Pearson Chi-Square values for the other three demographic variables used in the cross-tabs were found to be insignicant.
For this reason, only the cross-tabs for gender and occupation are
included for observation. Upon examination of the cross-tab for occupation, it was found that several cells had expected counts of less
than 5, which made the cross-tab inappropriate for interpreta-

Table 4
Benets sought and satisfaction levels at the farmers market.

Produce at the market is better value than other outlets

Generally prices are lower at the market than other outlets
Produce at the market is more nutritious than other outlets
Produce at the market has better avour than other outlets
Wider variety of produce at the market than other outlets
Availability of produce at the market is better than other outlets
There is more unusual and exotic produce at the market
Social atmosphere of the market is superior to other outlets
By shopping at the market, I help support local agriculture better than if I shop at other outlets
Produce at the market is appealing
Produce at the market is tasty
Produce at the market is desirable
Produce at the market is of high quality
Produce at the market is appetising
I would be likely to buy produce from the market
I would be likely to recommend shopping at the market to a friend
This is one of the best shopping experiences that I have had
I am satised with my shopping experience at the market
My choice to come to the market was a wise one
I have truly enjoyed my experience at the market
Consuming produce from the market has been a good experience
Im sure it was the right thing to shop at the market

Mean

Std. deviation

Analysis N

5.53
4.72
5.38
5.88
4.68
4.58
5.28
6.41
6.55
6.07
6.14
5.97
6.05
6.12
6.34
6.49
5.20
5.98
6.08
6.15
6.09
6.03

1.153
1.430
1.236
1.032
1.478
1.373
1.429
.986
.820
.836
.843
.920
.922
.840
.837
.871
1.240
.864
1.004
.904
.901
1.103

190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190
190

L. McNeill, O. Hale / Australasian Marketing Journal 24 (2016) 135140

10. Discussion and conclusions

Table 5
Cluster membership and labels.

Committed loyals
Experience oriented
Product oriented
TOTAL
Missing

139

Frequency

Per cent

79
77
34
190
4

41.6
40.5
17.9
100.0

tion. To resolve this issue, the three categories (homemaker, retired

and unemployed) with low expected count cells were combined,
thus raising the expected counts to appropriate levels. Examination of the cross-tabs and the bar graphs of gender and occupation
frequency for each cluster resulted in the three cluster proles outlined below.
7. Committed loyals (41.6%)
Cluster 1, labelled as committed loyals, are mainly female and
are the most likely to be homemakers or retired. The cross-tab for
gender shows that there are proportionally more females in this
cluster than in clusters 2 and 3. This is shown in the expected count
for cluster 1, which is higher than actual count in the male category. The bar graph showing gender frequencies for committed loyals
also highlights the high proportion of females compared to males.
This cluster exhibits a higher number of self-employed people, homemakers and retired citizens than expected. This is clear from the
expected counts of these three categories, which for cluster 1 are
all lower than the actual counts. The bar graphs of occupation show
that cluster 1 contains more self-employed, retired and homemakers than the other two clusters. The high levels of loyalty, satisfaction
and favourability of the markets by this cluster are in keeping with
their demographics, as grocery shopping and other household duties
are likely to be this clusters responsibilities.
8. Experience oriented (40.5%)
The experience oriented cluster is relatively gender balanced, and
contains the highest proportion of students and employees. The predominance of these occupations is clear from the expected counts
versus the actual counts in the cross-tabs. The adjusted residuals
for these two expected occupations are also positive for the experience oriented cluster. Although the cross-tab shows slightly higher
numbers of males than expected and less females, the adjusted residuals is relatively small (0.7/0.7), which shows little variation in
gender within this cluster. The primary occupations of this cluster
match their apparent perceptions of the markets, with experience
being an important element for students and young adults in their
bachelor stage.
9. Product oriented (17.9%)
Cluster 3, labelled product oriented, is primarily male dominated; this is shown in the cross-tabs as the expected count for males
in this cluster are lower than the actual count. This is also evident
in the bar graph of gender for this cluster. The product oriented
cluster contains mainly employees and students rather than homemakers, retired or unemployed people; this is in keeping with the
high proportion of males in this cluster. The occupation frequencies for this cluster highlight the dominance of students and
employees compared to other occupations. The dominance of males
in this cluster ts the product oriented values that were evident in
the responses; males are less likely to be interested in the shopping experience; they are more interested in simply buying what
they need in as little time as possible.

The ndings of the current study reveal three segments of

consumers present at the Otago Farmers Market. These segments
include Committed Loyals, Experience Oriented and Product
Oriented consumers, who each attend the market for differing
reasons.
The Committed Loyals perceive the farmers market as superior to other retail outlets for all aspects of the market, including the
produce, atmosphere and experience. This segment, which contains a high proportion of females who either work from home or
no longer work, are likely to place high importance on buying healthy
and high quality food for their families. The reputation of the produce
at farmers markets as healthier, more natural and fresher would
thus be perceived as important for this segment, meaning high customer loyalty and regular patronage of the farmers markets. The
Committed Loyals scored the highest on all benet and satisfaction factors in the survey, obviously believing that the farmers
markets can provide them and those they care for a higher quality
alternative to produce from supermarkets and other stores. Consumers within this segment are likely to attend the market on a very
regular basis, and consequently need less targeting as they are
already loyal patrons.
The Experience Oriented segment has less connection and loyalty
with the market but goes for the experience of the market and appreciates the produce available. This segment appears to be relatively
young, containing mostly students and employees likely to be in
the bachelor stage of their lives. Respondents scored highly on the
appeal aspects of the produce as well as the satisfaction the market
can provide them, indicating that the experience of being at an event
like this and sampling its offerings are signicant motivators to attend
the market. These ndings are in keeping with the general personality characteristics of those in the bachelor stage, who value
excitement and are at the point in their lives when it is important
to live life to the fullest. In this way, it would be benecial for managers to promote to this segment the experiential aspects of the
market in communication strategies, emphasising the fun and excitement of the experience at the market rather than the value or
variety of produce.
The Product Oriented segment tend to be older males who are
more interested in going to the market simply to buy produce which
they believe has better availability and is better value. Males of this
type are less likely to place the experience of farmers markets as
something that would excite or motivate them. These males are less
interested in the shopping experience than females of similar demographics (age etc), thus they would not go to a farmers markets
simply for the enjoyment of it. This cluster is more likely to go to
the markets only for a short trip, to purchase the produce that they
require and leave straight after. Likely characteristics of this group
include a lower spend bracket (hence the attraction to the markets
for the value aspect), a lack of attachment to the farmers market
(meaning low loyalty) and a low desire to try new things, which is
in alignment with their scores on the variety factor. Appropriate
marketing communications to the Product Oriented segment would
thus involve promoting those products of the market that are lower
priced than supermarket fare.
11. Link to prior research
Overall, there is a lack of research that specically investigate
the presence of consumer segments within farmers markets, either
at a local or international level. Even within the realm of culinary
tourism there is limited research on consumer characteristics and
motivations (ela et al., 2007). Where single studies have attempted to apply segmentation to the culinary tourism market, the
approach has been relatively generalised and group consumers based

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L. McNeill, O. Hale / Australasian Marketing Journal 24 (2016) 135140

on pre-specied categories determined by the researchers (Ignatov

& Smith 2006). The current study takes a more specic perspective to segmentation, using an exploratory approach to understand
perceived consumer benets of attendance at farmers markets, with
no ad-hoc assumptions made.
Prior literature specic to farmers markets highlights the need
to understand the benets attributed to purchasing at farmers
markets in order to understand consumer behaviour and motivations (Wolf, 1997; Govindasamy, et al. 2002), thus the current
research, which explores whether these benets differ between different groups of consumers, can contribute a greater level of
understanding of consumer motivation in this context specically. Further, where authors have also expressed the need to investigate
consumer proles of market patrons in depth, in order to facilitate effective target market strategy (Wolf, 1997; Brooker, et al. 1993),
this study offers the foundations for qualitative exploration of the
identied proles of market consumer.
12. Managerial implications
The study offers some potentially important implications for the
managers of farmers markets in New Zealand. Market managers
can improve marketing communication by recognising that different segments of consumers within the markets have differing wants
and needs in relation to market offerings, and these should to be
accommodated in a sympathetic fashion with each other. Some consumers may attend the markets to enjoy the atmosphere and
experience of the event, whereas some consumer patronage is simply
for the produce. By recognising these differences, managers can manipulate the market offering and associated communications to the
different segments, thus promoting higher levels of customer patronage and loyalty. For example, in this specic instance, it is
recommended that the Otago farmers market concentrate marketing effort on the second core group of consumers, the Experience
Orientated group, providing more space for consumer-to-consumer
interactions and consumption of prepared foods and beverages on
site. Further, entertainment options should be considered to encourage these customers to attend more frequently and stay longer.
The rst group of consumers, the Committed Loyalists, are the most
stable of the three groups and therefore require minimal targeting
to maintain. The key concern with this group is that any changes to
the market made to accommodate the Experience Orientated group
do not disrupt the Committed Loyalist experience for example,
too much crowding in social areas or the removal of vendors to accommodate entertainment. The third segment, product orientated
consumers, offer little option for increased value to the Otago farmers
market, and do not warrant specic targeted marketing efforts.
13. Limitations
The study was limited to a sample size of 200, which could render
the sample less representative of the entire population of farmers
market consumers in New Zealand. Additionally, the study assumes
representativeness of the sample to other regions of NZ. Further, both
clustering and proling techniques are subjective in nature, and the
resulting segments are dependent on the interpretation of the researcher. Cluster analysis has been described as non-inferential and
atheoretical, having no statistical foundations upon which to infer
statistics from a sample to a population (Hair et al., 1998). Cluster
analysis relies on the knowledge of the researcher to determine the
cluster variate, which are the variables used to compare objects (Hair
et al., 1998). It is dicult to determine the quality of a clustering solution (Aaker et al, 2004), and which clusters are very similar to each
other. Assumptions are made regarding the measure of similarity that
the clustering technique is based on, and even whether the objects

should validly be clustered into groups at all. This limitation could

be addressed by comparing the results of this study to a future replication, which employs a different set of analysis techniques.
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