Assessing the Australian abalone market: a best-worst approach on 46 attributes

Purpose Abalone is a high-value fishery and aquaculture product that is often overlooked. Diversifying market access and delivering consumer-oriented products and marketing is a cornerstone of the Australian abalone industry. However, their effort is hindered due to a lack of consumer insights. As such, the present study attempts to reveal the product cues that are salient to consumer decision-making and delineate the unique consumer segments in the Australian abalone market. Design/methodology/approach Adopting best-worst scaling experiment, this study surveyed 200 Australian consumers and examined the importance of 15 intrinsic and 31 extrinsic product cues. This method mimicked an actual choice process and estimated the product cues’ relative importance. The cues’ relative importance was then used to conduct a two-stage clustering (hierarchical and k-means clustering techniques) to delineate consumer typologies within the Australian abalone market. Findings Findings reveal that eating quality, healthiness, naturalness, sustainability and origins are the five pillars underpinning the industry’s competitive advantage. From the perceived importance of intrinsic cues, consumers can be segmented into five groups: appearance lovers, sweet and juicy eaters, conventional seafood buyers, ocean-fresh flavour advocates and size matters. From the perceived importance of extrinsic cues, environmentalist, health-conscious, utilitarian, first-in-first-out, naturalist and regio-centric buyers were identified. Originality/value Providing granular data and superior discrimination concerning the importance of different product cues, this study offers unprecedented insights into both the literature and the abalone industry. The current study is also the first to illustrate the heterogeneity of Australian consumers in the abalone market, contributing significantly to the understanding of fishery and aquaculture market heterogeneity. Highlight