Revealed consumers’ preferences for fresh produce attributes in Chinese online markets: A case of domestic and imported apples

BACKGROUND: The online market is getting popular today, and consumers’ preferences about products are revealed differently in online and offline markets. Especially, fresh food purchasing online is very different from non-food products due to its unique features such as perishability, low cost and frequent purchases, low value-volume ratio, and highly relevance to safety and health. However, studies on online fresh food are rather few, and this study will fill the gap by investigating consumers’ preferences for fresh food online purchasing. METHODS: Using unique data observed from online stores, we conduct a hedonic analysis of fresh produce online market using apple market in China, avoiding hypothetical bias. Propensity Score Matching is used to check the online promotion effects. The data are apples transactions from Jingdong JD e-commerce platform with sample size 8,200, observed across six weeks from 11/26/2018 to 12/31/2018. Variables used include prices, promotions, varieties, places of origin, fruit size, labeled as organic or green food, watercore label, and customer reviews for the products as well as for the venders. RESULTS: We found place of origin, food safety and eco-certificates, and sensory features all influence apple prices which reflect consumer preferences. In addition to product features, store features such as former customers’ review for the store, a video post of the product, and other latent product features through former customers’ review for the product quality also influence consumers’ preference reflected by price. CONCLUSIONS: In additional to product intrinsic features, consumer show preferences and valuation for online market special features.