Research On Consumers’ Channel Migration Intention In Purchasing Fresh Foods And Its Determinants During COVID-19

Promoting the deep integration of the new generation of fresh agricultural products and information technology and developing online sales channels for fresh agricultural products have brought positive social benefits to improve the income of agricultural industry,and are important deployment requirements during the 14 th Five-Year Plan of the country,as well as an important step to promote the process of rural revitalization.In recent years,the multichannel purchasing options for fresh produce consumers have received widespread attention from suppliers,retailers and other business entities.Under the influence of COVID-19,the fresh produce e-commerce sector has developed rapidly.Given the special requirements of fresh agricultural products for storage and transportation conditions,the main distribution and sales channels for fresh agricultural products are still offline farmers’ markets,and the online fresh e-commerce market has a large potential for development.The study of consumers’ willingness to choose dual sales channels under the dual-channel supply chain of fresh agricultural products and the analysis of the internal logic of consumers’ migration from offline farmers’ market sales channels to online Internet sales channels can provide reference for the national policy direction of encouraging the development of fresh e-commerce.At the same time,it can make each production and business entity understand more about consumer psychology and behavior,and provide reference for the formulation of marketing strategies of dual-channel sales merchants and fresh produce e-commerce merchants,and provide reference for the transformation and upgrading of agricultural modernization.Analyzing consumers’ preference for the choice of fresh agricultural products purchase channels under the dual-channel supply chain and their willingness to migrate channels can improve consumers’ satisfaction of online purchase,promote the improvement and upgrading of fresh e-commerce marketing,and contribute theoretical references to the transformation and upgrading of agricultural modernization.Few existing studies focus on the migration behavior of consumers between online and offline channels.The article considers that many consumers will try to purchase online fresh agricultural products brought by COVID-19 in2020,takes fresh agricultural products as the subject of research,builds a theoretical model based on S-O-R model,socio-technical system theory,prospect theory,expectation confirmation theory,and combines consumer’s own factors,consumer’s perceived quality factors,and online and offline channel purchase experience factors,and establishes logistic regression model to study the influence mechanism of consumers’ purchase channel selection behavior and to investigate the factors influencing consumers’ willingness to migrate to fresh produce purchase channels under the COVID-19 epidemic situation.The results of the empirical analysis show that:(1)For the study of factors influencing consumers’ fresh produce purchase channel choice before the epidemic,it shows that female,younger,and unmarried consumers purchase fresh produce online more frequently.Both the overall environmental conditions of the offline market and food safety significantly influenced the choice of purchase channel before the outbreak.Consumers concerned about online pictures were more likely to purchase fresh produce online,and those concerned about online reviews were more likely to choose to purchase fresh produce offline.Consumers who are concerned about quality and online merchant reputation are more likely to choose to buy fresh produce offline,and consumers who are concerned about online food safety,price,and logistics efficiency are more likely to choose to buy fresh produce online.(2)Research on the factors influencing consumers’ fresh produce purchase channel choices after the outbreak showed that consumers with higher education,female,younger,and unmarried would make more online purchases.Both the overall environmental conditions of the offline market and food safety significantly influenced consumer purchase channel choice.Consumers who are concerned about online pictures and their own buying experience will choose to buy fresh produce offline more often.Consumers who are concerned about quality are more likely to purchase fresh produce offline,and those who are concerned about online food safety,price,and logistics efficiency are more likely to purchase fresh produce online.(3)The study on consumers’ willingness to migrate purchasing channels under the epidemic situation shows that consumers with higher education level will increase the frequency of purchasing fresh produce online.Compared to females,males are more affected by the epidemic and increase the frequency of purchasing fresh food online.Older consumers tend to increase their online purchases of fresh produce as a result of the epidemic.Unmarried consumers tend to increase the frequency of purchasing fresh produce online more often than married consumers,and consumers who follow online pictures increase the frequency of purchasing fresh produce online.Consumers who followed online reviews were less likely to increase the frequency of online purchases of fresh produce under the influence of the epidemic,and consumers who purchased based on their buying experience were less affected by the epidemic and increased the frequency of online purchases of fresh produce.The overall environmental health of offline markets had no significant impact on online fresh produce purchases.Consumer awareness of online fresh produce safety significantly influenced the increase in the probability of online fresh produce shopping.For the online purchasing experience,consumers who were more concerned about the safety of fresh produce increased their online purchase frequency.Consumers’ concern about the reputation of the platform negatively influenced the increase in purchase frequency.Consumers’ concerns about the quality,price,and logistics efficiency of online fresh produce did not significantly affect the change in consumers’ online shopping frequency.Based on the empirical findings,this study proposes countermeasures: first,to improve the reliability of information dissemination channels and build a good business ecology;second,to pay attention to the phenomenon of consumer stratification in society and targeted marketing;third,to introduce stricter policies to guarantee the food safety of fresh agricultural products in each channel and promote the benign operation of the fresh agricultural products multi-channel sales market;fourth,to guarantee the safety and quality of fresh agricultural products and safeguard Platform reputation.The findings of the study provide decisionmaking reference for better promotion of fresh produce e-commerce merchants.