Impacts of E-commerce on the Farmer's Management Behavior

전자상거래가 농업경영 행태에 미치는 영향

This study was focused on analyzing the impacts of e-commerce on the farmer's management behavior and suggesting alternatives for the development of e-commerce in agricultural industry. For this study, survey was conducted for 24 farmers who sell agricultural products through e-commerce in Chungnam province. The results of study are as follows; First, farmers have changed their management practices in terms of production, marketing and processing by using the information of consumers' preferences while doing e-commerce business. Second, farmers have attempted to differentiate their product through product brand and customer relationship marketing, because they recognized the importance of developing marketing techniques adapted to e-commerce system for more revenues. Third, if quality certification system of agricultural products is introduced under e-commerce, farmers would use it for their environmentally sounded farming because they expect to increase their income. Fourth, 75% of the farmers sold their product at retail price. It means that e-commerce farmers act as a price maker rather than price taker at e-commerce market, who will be encouraged to have larger business size resulting in more added value. Based on the results of study, we suggest that there should be reduction of service charge for credit card, and encouragement of B2B transaction for the economy of scale and introduction of quality certification system so as to establish e-commerce system of agricultural industry as soon as possible.