Exploring Consumer Behavior and Preferences toward White Shrimp in Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work is very essential to promote commodity marketing. Authors have carried out the work systematically. Little more emphasis should have given on the nutritional richness of shrimp, safety and traceability. In this study I found contradictory statements of preference for labelled/organic shrimp and consumers not willing to pay higher prices for traceability and safety?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very well-written study of the marketing of white shrimp by private companies in Taiwan in the light of consumer concerns about the illegality and safety of the products. The authors have produced a clear analysis of consumer behaviour using theoretical models about product awareness, purchase intention, consumption habits, and consumer demographics. They made use of 787 self-administered questionnaires from 921 volunteers, and their analysis of the data from the questionnaires yielded some interesting results which the marketers of white shrimp should find useful. I am not qualified to assess the validity of the complex statistical analysis conducted by the authors, but I was surprised to read that 78% of the respondents had a university education. This seems an astonishingly high proportion, and suggests that the results may apply to only the elite of Taiwan's consumers. However, in all other respects I was impressed by the paper, and I recommend that it is published virtually as it stands, provided an expert in statistical analysis is happy with the methodology

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

General comments

 

This paper tries to explore the key factors and issues that influence Taiwanese consumer behaviour and preferences when it comes to the consumption of white shrimp, in order to increase consumer confidence in, and purchase intention for, private-brand white shrimp and to develop marketing strategies for farmers. This was made through a semi-questionnaire with 921 consumers of white shrimp between November 2020 and March 2021.

 

The objective of the manuscript, in general, is interesting from a socioeconomic point of view. The manuscript is well-structured, clearly presented and written. However, it needs a few improvements to reach the standard of publication. The manuscript should become acceptable for publication pending suitable minor revision considering the comments appended below.

 

More specific comments:

 

Title, Abstract and Keywords: reflect the content of the paper.

                                                                                                                                               

Introduction:

 

Line 67 – 68: "Of these, white shrimp is the most important.". Please explain in what terms it is the most important and add reference.

 

Line 87 – 88: "In order to increase profits, a growing number of aquaculture producers have begun to sell white shrimp directly to consumers.". Please explain the current supply chain and the mechanisms used by the aquaculture producers to promote and sell white shrimp products. Also, clarify what do you mean by consumers? Do you mean the final consumers or the wholesalers and retailers who are normally the clients of aquaculture producers.

 

Material and methods:

 

Line 167 – 169: "A semi-open question format was adopted with yes/no questions, single and multiple choice questions, and questions with a five-point bipolar scale.". Please provide a copy of the used questionnaire as appendix or as online supplementary material.

 

Line 174 – 175: "The participants in the survey were all 174 volunteers and came from different areas of Taiwan.". It is not clear how the participants were selected randomly from different areas of the country. Please explain.

 

Line 181 – 183: "In the end, a total of 921 volunteers took part in the survey, and the data from 787 questionnaires were available for study. 91 questionnaires were discarded due to missing, incomplete or invalid responses.". In the abstract only 921 questionnaires were mentioned. Please add also that 787 were valid and used in the study.

 

Line 184 – 193: 3.3. Statistical analysis: Please add references to all the statistical tests that were used.

 

Results:

 

In general: The organisation of the text with the tables and figures is somehow inadequate. To improve the readability of the paper, it would be useful to insert the tables and figures after the relevant/corresponding paragraphs.

 

Line 205 – 207: "Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to extract significant factors related to product 205 awareness and purchase intention. These included product knowledge, product safety, price perception, product source, product value, and sale price.". I think this should go to Material and methods. Also, please explain/define each of the mentioned factors/variables.

 

In tables 3 and 4: Please add the currency exchange rate against the $USD at the table description/header. This will be useful for nonnative readers. Also, this is changing overtime and it would be great to provide this information (current rate) at the time of writing the paper.

 

Discussion and Conclusion:

 

The two sections provide a good summary, discuss the results in the light of similar previous studies, and provide some recommendations to encourage white shrimp farmers to develop an overall production and marketing plan that will enable them to increase sales and prices, and boost profits.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf