Consumer Involvement Profiles in Superfood Purchasing: Evidence from Peri-Urban Areas of Hanoi

Abstract

The increasing popularity of superfoods has created a need to better understand how consumers evaluate purchase decisions and whether distinct involvement profiles exist within emerging markets. This study identifies consumer involvement profiles in superfood purchasing among consumers in peri-urban areas of Hanoi, Vietnam. Data were collected from 139 consumers and analyzed using a two-stage clustering approach combining hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward’s method) and K-means clustering. The results revealed three distinct consumer involvement profiles. The first segment, Comprehensive Evaluators (4.3%), demonstrated exceptionally high involvement across all purchase decision criteria. The second segment, Health-Conscious Evaluators (22.3%), placed greater emphasis on nutritional information, product certification, perceived risk, and convenience while showing lower sensitivity to advertising and consumption trends. The third segment, Passive Consumers (73.4%), exhibited consistently low involvement across most decision criteria. Payment methods emerged as the strongest factor distinguishing the segments, whereas price showed the weakest discriminating power. Furthermore, age, gender, and income were not significantly associated with cluster membership. The findings suggest that superfood consumers are differentiated primarily by their involvement in evaluating product and purchasing attributes rather than by demographic characteristics. This study contributes to the literature on consumer involvement and food consumption behavior by identifying heterogeneous involvement profiles and provides implications for segmentation and targeted marketing strategies in emerging superfood markets.