Wirkungen von Bioprodukten auf das KäuferInnenverhalten – Phänomene und deren Hintergründe

Summary

Consumers of organic products follow specific decision patterns. Several models mainly from environmental psychology are investigating the consumer behaviour based on quantitative data. Often the statistical results about the consumers’ behav-iour are controversial and show that the explanations by the models are limited. It is assumed that not as much factors are integrated in the models, as well as several psychological factors are not considered. Oriented on the concept of depth morphol-ogic impact analysis, the paper discusses the impact of organic products on consum-ers acceptance as well as the decision making process for buying organic products. This analysis includes the factors price and origin. 38 morphologic non-structured depth interviews were collected in 2006 from part buyers of organic products in Vienna and Graz (Austria). It is obvious, that familiarity and trust into the farmer, the direct contact to the farmer and products from the region, affect the decision to buy organic products. If the product and the market situation are not transparent for the consum-ers, they mistrust the organic products. They feel insecure. In case of non transpar-ency consumers do not understand if organic products are also Fair Trade produced. This led to the simplification that all products from the region are better than others and better means they become the status of organic even if the product is a conven-tional one.