Analysis of conceptual model of fish buyer’s behavior (Case study: west of Mazandaran Province)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavior of buyers of fish in western cities of Mazandaran province. For this purpose, 383 questionnaires were designed based on research hypotheses and completed in proportion to the number of households in the cities of Noor, Nowshahr, Chalous, Abbasabad, Tonekabon and Ramsar. To investigate status of the acceptance or rejection of hypotheses a conceptual model of behavior was designed and implemented by LISREL software (Structural equation modeling method). The results of this study showed that 46.12% of the statistical population buys fish three times a year. The first priority of 57.56% of buyers was rainbow trout. The first preference of the majority of respondents (77.45%) to choose the place of purchase was the fish market. The main reason for 84.67% of people not to eat fish as recommended by the World Health Organization was the high price. In this society, only 5.36% of people preferred packaged fish in first priority and most of them (59.71%) chose the model without head and empty stomach (fresh) in the first priority. 25.36% of respondents answered that the main reason for consuming fish is purely nutritional value. In this study, four hypotheses of significant effect of packaging and price on attitude as well as significant effect of availability and time on perceived behavior control were rejected and the rest of the hypotheses (Significant effect of specie, quality and type of supply on attitude, Significant effect of price on behavior control, Significant effect of attitude on the decision to buy, Significant effect of behavior control on decision to buy and final behavior, Significant effect of decision to buy on the final behavior) were confirmed. Based on the effect coefficient values, quality was mentioned the most effective factor on attitude.