An Empirical Research On The Household's Choice Of Marketing Channel

The researches on agricultural products marketing channel in domestic and foreign mainly concentrated in the mode and innovation of marketing channel, the optimization of marketing channel, the management of supply chain relationship as well as the conflict four of marketing channel. All these researches mainly focus on the whole channel, the middleman or the end-customer, but less focus on the households. Particularly in China, the research in this area has just begun. So this paper approaches the subject from the perspective of household, exploring how the households make a choice of marketing channel.This paper based on the Transaction Cost Theory, first reviews and summaries the researches on agricultural products marketing channel by domestic and foreign scholars, then construct the research model model to identity the key factors for the household's choice of the marketing channel, using the case of litchi producers in Guangdong Province. Based on a survey of 623 litchi producers from 167 villages of 13 counties in Guangdong Province, the Multiple Linear Regression Model is used to examine the effects of personal characteristics, transaction characteristics, production characteristics and environmental characteristics on the farmer's interests appetite. Then the Tobit Model is taken to explore how farmers' interests appetite affect his final selection of marketing channel. Some conclusions came out as the following.(1)Age, education, attitude towards risk, working time, commercialization, uncertainty, asset specificity, unstable market price, the number of channels, hours required between orchard to Prefectural-Level city have significant influence on farmer's interests appetite, thereby increasing his use of retail channels, while reducing his use of wholesale market channels.(2)Farmer's interests appetite is significantly affected by age, education, attitude towards risk, working time, commercialization, uncertainty, asset specificity, unstable market price, the number of channels as well as hours required between orchard to Prefectural-Level city. Farmer consequently will be more likely to use collection stations channels rather than retail channels.(3)High levels of age, risk appetite, commercialization, uncertainty, asset specificity, hours required between orchard to Prefectural-Level city will promote farmer's interests appetite to urge them shift from wholesale market channels to retail channels.(4)Age, education, attitude towards risk, cultivation scale, working time, uncertainty, asset specificity, unstable market price, the number of channels will contribute to farmer's interests appetite,thus promoting the choice of farmers in wholesale market channels, while restricting the choice of farmers in collection stations channels.(5)Age, attitude towards risk, commercialization, uncertainty, asset specificity, unstable market price, the number of channels, hours required between orchard to Prefectural-Level city are important determinants of farmer's interests appetite, urging farmers shift from field channels to retail channels.(6)The factors including age, cultivation scale, commercialization, uncertainty, asset specificity, unstable market price and the number of channels, all have positive significant effects upon farmer's interests appetite to facilitate the use of collection stations channels.(7)High levels of education, cultivation scale, uncertainty, asset specificity, unstable market price, and the number of channels will contribute to high level of farmer's interests appetite, which instead reduce his use of ollection stations channels.(8)Age, attitude towards risk, uncertainty, unstable market price, the number of channels, hours required between orchard to Prefectural-Level city have great impact on farmer's interests appetite, thus urging farmer shift from retail channels to field channels.