The effects of social‐economic status of consumers on purchasing, behaving and attitude to food products: Case study of Van, Turkey

The aim of the study is to group consumers according to their own perception of socio‐economic status and to determine consumption habits, behaviors, approach and tendency towards food products.

In this study, consumers in urban areas of Van, in Turkey, were grouped according to their self‐perceived social‐economic status and their behaviors and attitudes on purchase of food products are examined according to that social‐economic status. The study was conducted in Van province, Turkey, during 2007‐2008. Face to face interviews with 300 consumers work through the survey data was collected. Participants were asked to indicate their socio‐economic status from a choice of top, middle and bottom level groups.

Within the top and middle level of this grouping, the percentage of high school graduates is high; at the bottom level of this status, the proportion of university graduates is high. A large percentage of the consumers are public servants and business owners. It was observed that as the socio‐economic status increased, the proportion of business owners increased as well. Consumers in lower status groups spend the biggest portion of their income on food products. As the wages increase, the level of spending on food product decreases proportionally and the ability to make savings increases. The highest status consumers always check the price labels of the food products with a high percentage (66.67 percent). More than half of consumers do not believe that producers write all information and ingredients of the products on the packaging. A total of 77 percent of study participants stated that they were open to trying new food products. Consumers within the top socio‐economic groups are most careful about food ingredients.

In this study, the consumers themselves are classified according to their socio‐economic status. These are the top, middle and bottom status as determined. Consumers are clustered according to the general characteristics of the correspondence analysis.