Food market segmentation based on consumer preferences using outranking multicriteria approaches

Abstract

Market segmentation is a key concept in marketing that groups consumers by their needs, characteristics, or purchasing behavior. The objectives of this research are to develop outranking multicriteria models based on preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) in order to segment food consumers and apply them to a survey of healthy and sustainable meat. The models consider two categories of purchasing criteria; one related to product and another to the distributor process. One model generates ordered segments of consumers, while the other obtains four segments according to consumer performance in both criteria categories. An extension of FlowSort method for the sorting problems with Likert scale data is also contributed. The profile of segments shows the significance level of variables such as gender, but mainly those related to food-related lifestyles, when characterizing the consumer groups. This proposal represents a robust approach, which is useful in the effective design of marketing campaigns and policies.