Abstract
In a rapidly changing society, the rise in standard of living and level of education has brought about a Qualitative change in consumption, especially food consumption. Accordingly, consumers' interest in and the consumption of health foods has also grown at a rapid pace, expanding the health food market. However. because of the consumer's lack of understanding and knowledge about health foods, the reality is a difficulty in establishing sound consumption. Accordingly, this study was conducted to analyze the consumers' purchase behavior for health food. Through this study, consumers will be able to rationally plan for the use of health food items and further to provide necessary information for planning and executing effective marketing strategies producers and distributors of health foods items. The subjects of this study are the 473 Seoul residents over the age of 20 who have used health food items in the past year. The result of this study showed the use of fatigue rehabilitators, with 93.2% of the respondents saying they have used it. was the highest. with natural products honey, vitamin supplements. restorative foods, mineral supplements, young-gi fellowing in order. Recovery from fatigue. with 3.81, was the top reason the respondents started using health food items, followed by maintenance of health, supplement nutrition. and prevent disease. Family and relatives topped the list of information sources with 3.76. followed by TV and friends. On the other the Internet(2.32) and radio(2.35) were shown to be the lowest information sources. Those surveyed listed quality(4.00), safety(3.99). and nutrition(3.93) as evaluative criteria for health food items, in order of importance. The place of purchase most frequented by consumers in the survey were specialty stores(35.3%) leading the way with department stores and door-to-door sales, pharmacy following behind. On the other hand. purchases from direct mail were the lowest with 1.5% The people who bought health food Items were shown to be parent/siblings(37.2%) , self(33.6%) followed by spouse(23.7%) Purchases made by children were very low with only 4.9%. Finally, the level of satisfaction after using health food products were generally not very high. Consumers seem to be satisfied with the effectiveness(3.37) and safety (3.15) of the products. which is very minute, and they were slightly dissatisfied with the quality of the products.