A STUDY OF THE SPANISH HOME MARKET FOR ORANGES: II. THE CONSUMER LEVEL

The main export market is the EEC (European Economic Community), which absorb on average 87% of own total export. Within the EEC, France and Germany are the more important country markets.

Comparing each of these two markets with our home market one can observ the overwhelming importance of the latter, being in absolute terms more than double that any one of the two foreign export markets.

This fact reveals the paramount importance of the domestic market for oranges, which together with the increasing demand for quality products, directly related to the increasing per capita income, justifies the importance of this research program.

The research was implemented simultaneously in two different towns, Zaragoza and Valencia. The first one being a market test representative of the whole country and the second as a mixed population both consumer and important producer of oranges, will provide the opportunity to detect significative differences in consumer behaviour.

Three levels of the marketing channels have been studied: wholesaler, retailer and consumer.

In this paper we refer only to the consumer level in which we have tried to probe on buying habits and attitudes of the housewife, as well as knowing her opinion about items related to the orange marketing practices, which may, in turn, be useful to those people engaged in the production and marketing businesses furnishing them with first hand information on needs and preferences of the consumer sector.

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