The purpose of this study is to find out what are the key factors driving the demand for flexible packaging in terms of marketing mix during the discount campaign in Thailand?” and what are the consumer attitudes towards flexible packaging. The research topic of this thematic paper is to examine the key factors driving the demand for flexible packaging during the downsizing campaign in Thailand. When the demand for the use of plastic packaging is higher, the supply should increase to match the market demand.
There are more than 3,000 plastic producers in Thailand and with the trend towards more expansion in the future, even the government, private sector and some plastic users are concerned about the impact on the environment, human health, animals and pollution. The main objective of this study is “what are the key factors driving the demand for flexible packaging in terms of marketing mix during the reduction campaign in Thailand?”. Understanding the key factors driving demand for flexible packaging during the reduction campaign in Thailand.
Expected Benefit
LITERATURE REVIEW AND PROPOSED FRAMWORK
Types of plastic food packaging material
Influential factors for driving flexible packaging demand during the reduction campaign in Thailand
- Consumer characteristics
- The environmental factors
- Marketing mix
- Buying Decision Process
Lifestyle consists of motivation, needs, desires and is also influenced by family, social class, culture, etc. External factors that influence consumers to support their perception and help them decide to create and purchase products or services, which consist of economic, technological, political, cultural, demographic and situational. Additionally, biodegradable plastics must meet the same food safety regulations as fossil-based plastics, and many bio-based plastics have certifications that prove they can be used in food contact applications.
Moreover, they also create some plastic reduction campaigns to encourage people or consumers to show more concern about the negative side effects of using too much plastic packaging. Therefore, culture is the most fundamental cause of a person's needs, desires and behaviors (Claessens, 2015). Consumers always buy products that they know and have a positive attitude before compared to other brands.
Technology helps support the quality of products and ensures more functional use and a greater variety of products. Besides, the development of technology supports the lower production costs and also increases the quality of the products. When making decisions about purchasing products or services, consumers use a five-stage method for their purchasing decisions, which consists of identifying needs, searching for information and options before the purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior (Marshall and Johnston, 2010).
However, consumers are likely to remember negative information and avoid consuming products or brands that receive negative evaluation (Shiffman and Kanuk, 2004). If the product or service does not meet their needs or meet the consumer's expectations, the consumer becomes disappointed and has a negative attitude and perception towards those products or services.
Conceptual Framework
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Research Design
- Population and Sampling
- Data Collection
- Data Analysis
Thus, it would help the researcher to obtain insightful information for analysis of the outcome. To study the factors influencing the purchasing decisions of flexible packaging related to the reduction campaign, the researcher divided the questions into two groups, consisting of five managers of the plastic industry and five consumers who use plastic in daily life, and also divided into three parts. The second part asks about the consumer's attitude and perception towards the flexible packaging, while the manufacturer will focus more on the factors driving production demand and market trend.
Incidentally, this research also asks how marketing mix factors influence the purchase decisions of flexible packaging. What are the key factors driving consumption and production. eg: growth of food industry). What do you think about the practice that most retailers in Thailand provide plastic bag as a habit.
Referring to the government's launch of the reduction campaign, the company is looking for any solution to help with this matter. What are the key trends to drive flexible packaging growth during the reduction campaign in Thailand. What do you think about most retailers in Thailand provide plastic bags as a custom.
Consult the government launching the campaign to reduce plastic packaging. Are you making (or planning to make) any changes to help resolve this issue? What do you think are the key trends driving demand for flexible packaging during the reduction campaign?
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
- Consumer characteristics
- Demographic
- Lifestyle of consumers
- Attitude and perception of using flexible plastic packaging toward environment impact
- The environment factors
- Market trend and economic situation
- The development of technology
- Marketing Mix
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotion
- Discussion
Most managers of the flexible plastic industry expressed that today's consumer trend is more preferring and focusing on the convenience lifestyle. Consumer attitude can be defined as the fact that most Thai consumers were not too concerned about the environmental impact of plastic packaging compared to the other countries. Managers 1 and 4 said: “As producers of raw materials, their target markets are the manufacturers that produce the flexible plastic packaging, which has a total consumption of about 4,000 tons based on the sales allocation per month, with the production season in the second quarter being high, while it was low in the fourth quarter.
We found that the demand for flexible plastic packaging grows more during development (Asia region) than in Europe. Biodegradable plastics are developing technology to be environmentally friendly as they decompose more easily than flexible plastic packaging of crude oil. Managers 1, 2, 4, and 5 said, "Biodegradable products are the new development, but they have not become famous in Thailand's plastic industry because the higher price than crude oil plastic resins, which lead to higher costs high production.
The quality of flexible plastic packaging is very important from the consumer's point of view, because most of the flexible packaging is a zipper bag, garbage bag, shopping bag, frozen food bag, etc. in this type of products, they don't focus more on the brand, but they will care about the brand and the quality of the products that are in the packaging. Interviewees 1, 3 and 4 said that "when I buy some food or consumer products, the packaging may attract my first attention, but in reality I will be more concerned about the quality and brand of the products than the packaging itself".
Interviewees 1, 3 and 4 said: “They buy one pack of zipper bags once a year to store the consumer goods as travel sets and other accessories. They can reuse it more than twice to store the travel kits. Managers 2, 3 and 5 said: “The price of raw materials is important to us in terms of production costs and benefits, but that was not so important for flexible plastic packaging, because the price was very sensitive to this quality and they had many producers on the market, so if they bid too high, we just change the new one unless our customers ask for those materials.” In terms of environmental impacts, trends in the food industry have become part of factors increasing the demand for the use of flexible plastic packaging.
Price affects consumers' buying decisions, but not too much, because the flexible plastic packaging is a commodity product that the market can strictly control the price and most industries and consumers use it in daily life such as garbage bag, shopping bag, sanitary bag, and etc. .
RECOMMENDATIONS AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Conclusions
However, this does not help to reduce the problem, instead it worsens the problem. Because the low quality of the shopping bag cannot be reused as a garbage bag and cannot contain heavy products such as bottles as it breaks. Secondly, demand for flexible plastic packaging is driven by many industries such as food industry, hospitality, retail and so on.
So as the food industry grows, it will also affect the demand to use flexible plastic packaging. But they are not widely used in plastic packaging production in Thailand, because most producers and consumers lack the knowledge of the real function of how to use and degrade them, and the production cost is higher than the material made from crude oil. In addition, consumers do not compare too much about the price, because for the final product, since the price is not too different, and flexible plastic packaging (garbage bag, shopping bag, etc.) is a commodity that consumers use daily, so they just grab and go or buy the one that they like the color or the design.
But for the raw materials, the price is competitive because it affects production costs and profitability. On the other hand, promotion and place do not have much influence on consumers' decisions because the products are available through many channels such as supermarkets, hypermarkets, online shopping, etc. Because flexible plastic packaging can also be used for general purposes, such as garbage bags, Promotion cannot convince consumers to buy, other than “buy one, get one free”.
Finally, we cannot easily reduce or stop the trend of economic growth and the use of more flexible plastic packaging. However, we can educate consumers to try to become more aware of the impact on the environment by starting with family, and the schools should provide the waste management classes that start for children.
Limitations of the Study and Recommendations for Future Research The limitations of this study include its small sample size and the scope of
The private sector must train its workforce and try to reduce the use of plastic as much as possible. Moreover, the government should create a campaign and policy to encourage people to participate, not just explore the knowledge. For example, in some countries there is a machine to return used plastic and also provide money for the return, calculated based on the weight and size of the plastic. plastic. This way it could attract consumer attention and be more practical that everyone could enjoy. There are better ways to encourage them to focus on pollution and also improve waste management.
