Consumer Trust and Purchase of Perishable Fresh Food Online Versus In-Store: The Case of beef

Abstract

Online sales of perishable food have increased lately. Selling beef online requires consumer trust, which can be achieved by providing information about attributes and quality, and a quick and reliable delivery service. Among U.S. consumers, there is high trust in institutions and government offices involved in beef quality assessment. Yet, the introduction of traceability systems, such as Blockchain, could help consumers tracking perishable food items. The industry could increase beef online sales by providing certifications and product information, by developing reliable delivery services and packaging, and by allowing consumers to inspect fresh items visually online to reduce the quality uncertainty.

Keywords:

• Consumer trust
• food marketing
• fresh beef
• online groceries
• perishable products

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Raphael Roberts and Gregory Dorrian for their support with the graphic design. The authors also thank to the participants of the 65th Annual Conference of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) for their valuable comments. Finally, the authors are also grateful to the Editor and Reviewers of this journal for their valuable time reviewing this manuscript and for providing very helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclaimer information

The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy. This research was completed prior to Dr Ehmke’s employment at ERS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data without sensitive information used in this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the funding from the Global Perspectives Grant, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming. Consumer interviews were conducted following the requirements indicated in the research protocol #20181107ME02186, which was approved by the Institutional Review Board at University of Wyoming on November 7, 2018.