The use of the internet as a marketing channel for Irish speciality food

Purpose - Online shopping is one of the most rapidly growing forms of shopping and provides a global shop window for producers who wish to sell and market their products. This paper seeks to investigate the internet as an alternative distribution channel for Irish producers of speciality food products. Design/methodology/approach - Primary data collection involved consumer focus groups, a producer web audit, producer depth interviews and an e-mailed online producer survey. Findings - Consumers of speciality food appear to trade off the convenience and variety potentially available with online shopping for the sales experience associated with more traditional outlets, particularly speciality food outlets and direct sales channels. Nonetheless, the internet can be a significant sales channel for some speciality food producers with products of specific attributes, e.g. high value goods, and products with elaborate and gift-oriented packaging and for those targeting consumers with previous purchase experience. For the majority of producers, the internet can complement other marketing channels and its role in managing information and relationships may be more important than online sales. Significant challenges exist for speciality food producers to use the internet as a significant sales channel. Originality/value - The paper considers food as a category comprising a number of different types of products based on their search, credence and experience characteristics. It applies this categorisation to speciality food and examines the influence of these characteristics on the role of the internet as both a sales and marketing channel in Ireland. It uses both consumer and producer perspectives in the analysis.