marketing strategies to develop chocolate industry in thailand

The purpose of this study is to answer the research question about what are the main factors that influence the age of Thai customers between 18 and 60 years old living in Bangkok, uncover their purchasing behavior to make a decision to buy chocolate to consume and what are the strategies to develop chocolate market in Bangkok. The result illustrates that reference is the most important factors influencing the age of Thai customer between 18 and 60 years. Based on the findings, the researcher could create marketing strategies, consisting of a marketing mix strategy, a competitive strategy and a conservation strategy, that align with Thai customer behavior to improve the chocolate market in Thailand.

Currently, Thailand's chocolate market is valued at US$184 million ($6.44 billion) growing at about 10 percent per year. This report aims to explore the factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions, and by highlighting the importance of each factor, it will benefit those involved in the chocolate industry to appropriately develop marketing strategies for consumers in Thailand, but also for consumers abroad. As a result, this research will begin on the key factors that influence Thai customers' decision to purchase chocolate.

In this research, it will help the chocolate manufacturer and retailer to understand more about Thai consumer behavior and then develop the marketing strategy suitable for Thai consumers. The purpose of this research aims to study the key success factors that influence consumers' purchase decision in order to develop marketing strategies for the chocolate industry in Thailand. This area of research will concentrate on the key factors influencing workers aged 23 to 60 years who live in Bangkok, Thailand and consume chocolate.

Expected Benefit

LITERATURE REVIEW

History of chocolate
Overview of chocolate market in the world
Trend of Chocolate in the World
Overview of Chocolate Market in Thailand
Chocolate Consumption Behavior

The Western Europeans have market shares of around 45 percent of global chocolate sales in volume sales. By 2008, the size of the Japanese chocolate market will take a larger share than 6 percent of the global chocolate market value. Solid chocolate is the most popular type in Japan, accounting for 34 percent ($1.9 billion) of the total global chocolate market.

Many large companies in the market are trying to create market differentiation in their products to attract customers. At first the product is seasonal, but later it becomes a permanent product in the market. Moreover, the world's favorite flavor, which is coconut flavor, is the fastest growing in the chocolate segment at more than 9.5 percent, which proves that innovation can help increase sales volume ( Small changes drive consumer chocolate trends, 2011).

They are concerned about the ingredients of products to calculate the amount of food that consumers can consume each day, such as sugar should not exceed 10 percent of their total calories. In 2016, the Thai chocolate market is valued at US$184 million ($6.44 billion) growing at around 10 percent per year. However, Thai people consume an average of 0.1 kilograms of chocolate per person per year, which is relatively low compared to the most consumed chocolate country, namely Switzerland, which consumes 11.9 kilograms of chocolate per person per year.

Currently, Thailand has more than 200 chocolate brands (ASTV ผ๋ ป้ายส้ามี่คิช, 2015) and the most popular brand in Thailand is KitKat, with 50 percent of the market, accounting for 50 percent of the market. Hershey's and M&M's are 7.4 percent market share and Milo is only 6 percent market share (Marketeer, 2016). The most popular categories of chocolate consumed by Thai consumers are "Molded Bars" about 48.80 percent of the market and the least popular is the new product about 6.20 percent (Datamonitor, 2004) and the most distribution channels occur in convenience stores. convenience stores (60 percent. ), department stores (33 percent), and grocery stores (7 percent). The quality of chocolate is closely related to the location, variety of bean, growing conditions, harvesting method, fermentation procedure and storage and transport conditions.

The second factor is a 'preference' because different people have different tastes, so what is preferred by one customer may be considered low quality by another customer. A good characteristic of Swiss chocolate is smoothness, but a good characteristic of British chocolate is milkiness. The last factor is a 'store design', because the store can have an impact in a short time.

Figure 2.1 Chocolate Market Share in Thailand Source: Marketeer (2016)

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Framework of the research
Research Design
Population and Sample Size
Data Collection

To achieve the main objective of this research, the main influencing factors, namely product, price, place, promotion, reputation and emotion, are adapted to the questions and the data is collected qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative: This study uses in-depth interviews and focus group methods to find the constructs that influence the intention to purchase chocolate and the idea of creating marketing strategies for the chocolate industry. The questionnaire consists of four parts: screening questions, general questions, specific questions and demographic questions.

In this research, the population focus is mainly on Thais between the ages of 18 and 60, living in Bangkok, Thailand, who have consumed chocolate in the last month. Qualitative: For focus group and in-depth interview using the same questions as open-ended questions and focus group sample size is 6 respondents and in-depth interview sample size is 3 respondents. Quantitative: The research approach was a closed-ended online questionnaire due to the short period of data collection and convenience for the respondents to access the questionnaire, and the sample size of the questionnaire is 133 respondents.

The questionnaire is divided into 5 parts which are introduction, screening questions, general questions, specific questions and demographic questions. The methods are factor analysis, regression analysis descriptive analysis and ANOVA to study the hypothesized model and test the constructs that affect the intention to buy chocolate.

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Research Findings from Interview

Demographic profile of respondents
Consumption and buying behavior
Suggestion strategies

In addition, most female participants prefer chocolate in small packaging because it is easier to eat, while men like chocolate bars because they are easy and convenient to grab and eat. In addition, according to the above, most participants buy chocolate as a gift. And if you were to give chocolate as a gift, you would consider the packaging and the reputation of the brand.

Reasonable price: Most of the chocolate lovers do not care about price because they found that value for money is more important to them. Convenience and well-decorated place: Most of the male respondents buy chocolates from the convenience stores. Reputation of brand: They are more likely to buy the product from the brand that they are known or familiar with.

Emotional: Most of the participants choose chocolate when they need a positive mood, and some of them want to eat chocolate when they see others having one. According to the interview, all the participants suggested that the chocolate industry in Thailand should focus on five major issues: packaging, product quality, creating brand awareness, creating uniqueness and creating a destination experience. Packaging: The package must be modern and unique to make the product unique.

Product quality: The taste, texture, cocoa content and other ingredients in the chocolate must be of high quality. In addition to the development of the product itself, the creation of a well-known brand is also important, which was also mentioned by some interviewees. "I think that the company or the manufacturer should present and promote the chocolate or the brand through social networks. And when people know both the product and the brand, it's easier to buy the product” (Male, 21 years, graduate student).

My opinion is to create a story for a product like the origin of the cocoa.” So I think it would be a great idea to add tropical fruits to the product and only sell it in Thailand” (Male, 26, company employee).

Research Findings from Questionnaire

Demographic of respondents’ information
Factor analysis
Multiple regression analysis
Hypothesis summary

According to the result of the factor analysis, the important factor that influences the customer to buy chocolate could be explained by five constructs, which have eigenvalues greater than 1. Turning to Figure 4.1, it is illustrated that five of the significant factors that are important for chocolate purchase intention are Thai consumers living in Bangkok. After the dimension reduction was established, the five important factors that influence the customer to purchase chocolate could be described as follows.

The first dimension (construct 1) is set to statements of 'Emotional': use emotional for a decision to buy chocolate, such as when they need something sweet or when they need a positive mood. The third dimension (Construct 3) is 'Memorable': design that attracts customers to come to the store and buy the product. For the last dimension (construct 5) is 'Additional': benefits that shop or chocolate offers to the customer as in Table 4.4.

According to the results of the factor analysis, it was evident that some variables were eliminated because they were not significant. The hypothesis of this research would be tested using multiple regressions to see the key factors that influence Thai consumers' intention to purchase chocolate. A decision to accept or reject the hypothesis for this statistic based on a 95% confidence interval whose P-value is less than the 0.05 level of significance.

According to Table 4.5, the model summary of five constructs of factors affecting Thai customers' intention to buy chocolate, the result showed that R square at 0.278 and adjusted R square at 0.250. According to table 4.6, ANOVA's result while performing the multiple regression to measure the significant level of independent variables which are emotional, reputation, memorable, Reasonable price, Additional. According to table 4.7, coefficients and excluded variables of factors affect Thai customers' intention to buy chocolate.

As a result, from Table 4.7, two constructs have a positive relationship with Thai shoppers who live in Bangkok and intend to buy chocolate. According to this research, factor analysis and multiple regression methods were used for hypothesis testing to describe the relationship with all variables, both dependent and independent variables.