Determinants of Consumers’ Retention and Subjective Well-Being: A Sustainable Farmers’ Market Perspective

Farmers’ markets have received much attention in many countries, and the amount of research on farmers’ markets is gradually increasing. The consumption process of consumers at farmers’ markets include both economic and social aspects, but most past studies have only focused on a single aspect. The economic perspective mainly focuses on transaction issues such as purchase motives, quality, satisfaction, purchase behavior, and post-purchase behavior, whereas the social perspective focuses on the social relations and psychological feelings created when consumers go to markets. This study aimed to integrate the economic and social perspectives and analyze the relationships among product performance evaluation, relational capital, repurchase intention, and subjective well-being of consumers at farmers’ markets after their purchase experiences. I chose three recurrent farmers’ markets in Taiwan, obtained 358 valid samples, and performed structural equation modelling analysis. The results indicated that the economic product performance exerted a significant and positive influence on repurchase intention, but its influence on subjective well-being was not significant. In contrast, the social relational capital was found to be a positive and significant factor of both repurchase intention and subjective well-being. On the whole, relational capital is more important than product performance. The suggestions for practice were as follows. First, farmers’ markets have economic and social value and are thus worth being promoted by government agencies. Second, the managers of farmers’ markets should implement a set of management mechanisms to ensure product performance and also create a market atmosphere that facilitates social interactions between farmers and consumers.