Creating an electronic platform for bio produce

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis it to examine the creation of a digital marketplace to connect, almost directly, local producers of organic products with the consumer segment that regularly purchases organic products. This thesis describes the rationale and the drivers for adopting a digitized supply chain and investigates the barriers and benefits faced from suppliers as well as the consumers’ point of view towards their adoption of such a supply chain. Both qualitative and quantitative research, taking into consideration all major stakeholders of this supply chain ecosystem were performed and an abductive approach was used, where the findings and the theoretical background were connected by going back and forward in the process of analysis. Primary and secondary data was collected through the conduction of surveys, personal interviews, and the review of literature that was relevant for this subject. Our study shows that the market of organic agriculture has great potential to grow and thus the demand for bio products will increase. Although price is a major decision-making factor that affect a consumer’s intend for buying organic products, the majority of our research sample stated that they would be willing to buy more bio products if they could have better access as well as variety through the use of an online platform. The research also explored the local producers’ struggle in offering to the market these type of products claiming that their main concern is the logistics, delivery and better customer reach. Through our study, we propose the creation of an online platform to facilitate the access of producers to a bigger customer audience of the specific consumer segment, provide visibility of their company, handle transport and logistics. On the other hand, the proposed electronic platform will provide greater variety and quantity of fresh organic products as well as the removal of inconveniences most consumers in this segment experience such as the travelling to different retail stores or physical locations to acquire the organic products of their choice. The idea regarding the creation of an electronic platform to facilitate both the supply and demand sides of the organic market, is presented through the creation of a proposed business plan. A sensitivity analysis is provided which tests the implementation of this plan under different stress factors to show under which conditions, this platform could become a successful entrepreneurship activity.