Consumers' Attitude about Giving Gifts and the Buying Behavior in Apple Production Areas

Abstract

It has been found that consumers living in fruit production areas purchase plenty of the fruits for gifts. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the consumers' behavior in apple production areas. The results of the questionnaire survey that was conducted in Morioka City are as follows.
Nearly 80 percent of the respondents practice the custom of year-end gifts. The senior respondents tended to answer that they presented gifts every year. They stated that when giving gifts, they considered the preferences of their receivers. In addition, they acknowledged as wanting to be certain of the quality of the gifts they gave and that they wanted to present gifts related to the region that they lived in.
Among the respondents, 70 percent claimed to have given apples as gifts, and many senior respondents claimed that they frequently used them for gift items. Further, the survey results show that 40 percent of the respondents who had given apples as gifts had directly purchased them from farm producers. Therefore, it is important that farm producers get ready for direct marketing. The survey found that 22 percent of the respondents did not want to give apples as gifts in the future. This was because they believed that the quantity would be too much for a small family to consume. With the rise in the number of small families, this problem will need to be addressed.