Vietnamese Preferences for Fresh Korean Ginseng with Labels of Certification, Nationality, Private brands, and Shopping places

Abstract

Fresh Korean ginseng needs more credibility in the Vietnam market since fresh ginseng imported from China is increasing, and the Vietnam government promotes its national Ngoc Linh ginseng brand. Therefore, this study determines factors of three shopping places (the department store, supermarket, and ginseng specialty store), the certification label of good agriculture products (Viet GAP), Korean nationality, and three famous private brands of CheongKwanJang, HanSamIn, and Geumhong affecting Vietnamese consumers' fresh ginseng choices based on 897 respondents from Hanoi and Hochiminh City in January 2018. Conditional and random parameter logits are used to find differences in the independent assumptions' relaxation among irrelevant alternatives. Hausman test for IIA assumptions holds for the choice of the department store, ginseng specialty store, and None. Overall results show that shopping places, the Korean national flag, and the existence of VietGap positively affect Vietnam consumers' choices. However, none of the Korean private brands could significantly affect Vietnamese choice for fresh ginseng products. The shopping place of ginseng specialty stores gets the highest WTP, followed by supermarkets and department stores. Korean national flag also shows a high WTP, which is higher than Vietgap, a certificate from Vietnam agricultural products. Female consumers tend to pay more WTP than males. Hochiminh consumers are willing to pay more than Hanoi consumers on average. Of course, the high-income consumers tend to pay more WTP than the low-income group. However, the low-income groups still demand fresh ginseng at a significant price. Understanding different price effects by consumer groups seem helpful for small and medium enterprises to market their ginseng products into Vietnam by further considering the origin of Korean nationality.