THE EVOLUTION OF THE ORGANIC PRODUCTS AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Within this paper we bring together the conceptual and practical issues regarding the organic products market and the consumer behavior specificity on this market. In the first section we introduce the importance and argue the conceptual approach. Throughout the second section, we review the evolution of the ‘organic’ concept and emphasize the necessity to promote this consumption trend both at European level and national level. The evolution of the ‘organic’ concept must be acknowledged in order to have proper meaning of its origin and usefulness. The third section presents some evidence at European level regarding the practicing of organic farming and agriculture. Section four describes the specificity of the consumer behavior on this niche market. In order to bring the suitable arguments, we present a categorization of consumers and their behavior, in section 5. Throughout the conclusion section we review the most relevant ideas and interpretations on the subject. We conclude that each type of behavior depends on previous factors that had an influence, directly or indirectly. In real life, marketing studies are directly interested to discover and analyze the triggers of consumer behavior which further determine the consumers’ act of buying and that is highly more important for such a domain like organic products.