CONSUMER STUDY - INTRODUCTION

The following are excerpts from a 2012 US National Fair Trade Consumer Study conducted by my students at Keene State College and Fair Trade USA.  Please contact me for more info. and the complete study report.  Tstenn@keene.edu

INTRODUCTION

Though the largest consumer country in the world, the US has a very low per-capita consumption of certified Fair Trade products.  If all of the millions of dollars of Fair Trade product consumed in the US in 2007, were divided by the total number of US consumers, it would come out to each person spending just $3.15 for the entire year - about the cost of a single cup of Fair Trade coffee (Fig. 1).  Consumers in Switzerland spent about $27.31 each Fair Trade products that year.  It is unknown why this is the case.  Is it that US consumers are leery of Fair Trade’s claims for fairness? That they are unaware of the human rights violations and environmental damages that occur in conventional trade? Or as this study found, that they feel Fair Trade is “not my concern?” 

Fig. 1 (Krier, 2007, P. 19)

This study begins to shed light on who the US consumer is and what their views and role in Fair Trade purchasing is.  It takes into account other studies conducted in Europe which identified differences in consumer approaches towards Fair Trade based on age, perceived product availability, and place of residence (Low & Davenport, 2007, Srivastava, 2009).  To date, there has not been a comprehensive study of Fair Trade and consumers in the US.  This study, though not a comprehensive measurement of all consumers, starts a conversation.

There is a strong occupation, age, and place bias as 54% of respondents were students, 67% were under the age of 29, and 66% lived in a small city, town, or rural area.  The purpose of the study is to create a greater understanding of Fair Trade consumerism in the US by indentifying challenges, emerging trends, and motivation.  A demographic approach was taken as consumers were looked at by age, gender, occupation, income, and place of residence.  The following are the highlights of the many insights that they survey provided about the minds and motivation of the US consumer.