How Do Consumers Face the Decision to Buy Fair Trade Products? A Marketing Approach

Abstract

In this article, we propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how consumer social orientation, the credibility of nonprofit organizations, the perceptions of fair trade products, and the attitudes toward the fair trade brand interact and affect the buying intentions of fair trade products in a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The findings show that consumer social orientation has the greatest effect on buying intentions, above consumers’ perceptions of fair trade products, the credibility of the trading nonprofit organizations and consumers’ attitudes toward the fair trade brand. Actually, consumers’ attitudes toward the fair trade brand have no significant effect on consumers’ buying intentions. The findings also demonstrate that the credibility of nonprofit organizations only influences consumers’ buying intentions indirectly through consumers’ perceptions of the functional utilities of fair trade products.