Consumer preference of fertilizer in West

Java using multi-dimensional scaling

approach
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1927, 030012 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5021205
Published Online: 09 February 2018

Hesty Nurul Utami, Agriani Hermita Sadeli, Tomy Perdana, Eddy Renaldy, Mahra Arari H., Ajeng Sesy N. P., Fernianda
Rahayu H., Tetep Ginanjar, and Sonny Sanjaya

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© 2018 Author(s).
 Consumer Preference of Fertilizer in West Java Using
Multi-Dimensional Scaling Approach
Hesty Nurul Utamia), Agriani Hermita Sadelib), Tomy Perdanac),
Eddy Renaldyd), Mahra Arari H.e), Ajeng Sesy N.P.f), Fernianda Rahayu H.g),
Tetep Ginanjarh) and Sonny Sanjayai)

Agricultural Logistics and Supply Chain System (AGRILOGICS) Research Group,

Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Padjadjaran,
Jl. Raya Bandung-Sumedang KM 21, Jatinangor, Jawa Barat 45363, Indonesia
a)
Corresponding author: hesty.nurul@unpad.ac.id
b)
agriani.hermita@unpad.ac.id, c)tomy.perdana@unpad.ac.id, d)eddyrenaldy@gmail.com,
e)
mahra.arari@gmail.com, f)ajengsesynurpratiwi@gmail.com, g)fernianda1910@gmail.com,
h)
tetepginanjar@gmail.com, i)sonnysanjayy@gmail.com

Abstract. There are various fertilizer products in the markets for farmers to be used for farming activities. Fertilizers
are a supplements supply to soil nutrients, build up soil fertility in order to support plant nutrients and increase plants
productivity. Fertilizers consists of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, micro vitamins and other complex nutrient in
farming systems that commonly used in agricultural activities to improve quantity and quality of harvest. Recently,
market demand for fertilizer has been increased dramatically; furthermore, fertilizer companies are required to
develop strategies to know about consumer preferences towards several issues. Consumer preference depends on
consumer needs selected by subject (individual) that is measured by utilization from several things that market
offered and as final decision on purchase process. West Java is one of province as the main producer of agricultural
products and automatically is one of the potential consumer’s fertilizers on farming activities. This research is a case
study in nine districts in West Java province, i.e., Bandung, West Bandung, Bogor, Depok, Garut, Indramayu,
Majalengka, Cirebon and Cianjur. The purpose of this research is to describe the attributes on consumer preference
for fertilizers. The multi-dimensional scaling method is used as quantitative method to help visualize the level of
similarity of individual cases on a dataset, to describe and mapping the information system and to accept the goal.
The attributes in this research are availability, nutrients content, price, form of fertilizer, decomposition speed, easy
to use, label, packaging type, color, design and size of packaging, hardening process and promotion. There are
tendency towards two fertilizer brand have similarity on availability of products, price, speed of decomposition and
hardening process.

INTRODUCTION
Today consumers have opportunity to choose among various kind of product choice in the marketplace.
Related to agricultural business, farmers become potential buyer for many agricultural-input products, such as
seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and including cultivation tools and machines. Nowadays, fertilizers play an
important role on agricultural activities. Most of farmers use fertilizer in farming activities to supply nutrients
for plants. Moreover, fertilizer industries face permanent challenges to improve competitiveness of the products.
Apart from possible business problems, this is not easy problem to the improve the marketing competitiveness.
Globalization and free trades are become new challenges for fertilizer industry to sell their products. Fertilizers
industries sheds new light on the economic impact and economic value, employment and investments in
fertilizers. In addition, farmers as a target of fertilizer marketing have many preferences to decide in purchasing
fertilizer based on their need and wants.
According to Statistics in Indonesia, in the last five years of 2011-2015, imported fertilizer was over 6.3
thousand tons per years. On the other side, in 2015 market size of fertilizer is up to 2.9 million tons or rose to
5.7 percent from 2007 [1]. It shows that fertilizer industry in Indonesia has significant impact on the
horticultural production in that period of years. Not only that, the existence of imported fertilizers has affected

The 1st International Conference and Exhibition on Powder Technology Indonesia (ICePTi) 2017
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Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1619-2/$30.00

030012-1
the farmer’s preference to purchase a better quality fertilizer. Increasing the fertilizer consumption is tendency
towards farmland areas where most of farmers farming on open field and it depends on climates. It gives impact
to the fertilizers use as supplement supply for soil fertilities and crops nutrients. It is no wonder that farmers can
prefer fertilizer based on nutrients content and availability of products in the markets.
Furthermore, fertilizer consumed in Indonesia is rising higher year by year and it could affect the fertilizer
production. There is a tendency in the farmer’s behavior using fertilizer in farming activities. Preference is a
model of how consumers behave. An individual consumer has a set of preference and values who determines the
purchasing of products. Consumers preferences are depending on culture, educational background, individual
taste and any other factors that affects consumer’s decision. Consumers also make decisions to buy a product
based on price that worth it with the product in order to obtain good satisfaction. Noted that ability to purchase
goods does not determine a consumer’s likes or dislikes for the product.
Examines and compares fertilizer attribute preference within and between four different products in nine
main horticultural production areas involving thirteen attributes, i.e., availability, nutrients content, price, form
of fertilizer, decomposition speed, easy to use, label, packaging type, color, design and size of packaging,
hardening process and promotion [2]. Consumer preference is depending on individual willingness and selection
of products. Consumer preference is also linked with several attitudes’ that respond of simulation that is
accepted by consumer and then being perceived, learned and followed by knowledge and as a motivation to buy
a product and turn into a product.
The importance of store brands is one of the product attributes. Product attribute is a characteristics of a
particular products and it will affect a consumer’s purchase decision. Product attribute is the important key in
the business activities that will get consumers attention and loyalty for the products. Consumer attribute have a
specific segment that refers to an important strategy for a different consumer segment [3]. Product attributes are
important for industries to assess the gap among several products with competitiveness. Producer and/or
industry need to know what kind attributes mostly in the business. Consumer needs will help producer to
determine increase of business segmentation [4].
Furthermore, consumer preferences have several attributes that lead to understanding of consumer
characteristics. The reality shows that among various preferable alternatives serve for consumer will possibly
face difficulties and thus expose to more basic variety of choices preferred by consumer and finally make
decision to or not to select one of the choice [5]. This research will conduct various attribute toward consumer
preference on fertilizer use and leads to the product quality dimension. Every product dimensions will be
impacted to the consumer needs and wants and be able to survive in the competitiveness a way to survive in the
industry [6]. The relationship of consumer preference assumed to have three basic attitudes [7] i.e.,
completeness that analyze and specified becomes consumer willingness, so that company have enough
information to know about some good and bad products which ultimately the consumer can choose between the
alternatives. Transitivity, that is if a consumer prefers A rather than B and prefers A rather than C, then the
consumer should prefer A than C. Thus, consumer does not articulate its conflicting preference. Continuity that
if a consumer says she/he prefer A rather than B, it means that all conditions under A are preferable than
conditions under option B.
This research was conducted in West Java Province one of the main areas of production of horticulture in
Indonesia. West Java lies in 35,377.76 Km2 and has 3,590.719 Ha farmland areas [8]. In today competitive
marketing, using imported fertilizers become more trending. Farmers can compare all product attributes between
local and imported fertilizer quality. That phenomenon is affecting towards products choices and consumer
attitudes of purchasing fertilizers. Furthermore, fertilizer marketing keeps growing into globalization day by
day. It brings a tight competitiveness between local brand and imported brand. Hence, the objective of this paper
is to measure the similarity attribute between local brand and imported brand fertilizer and to identify the factors
that are critical to the fertilizer preference in West Java Province. We first introduce the methodology of the
study and then we will report on a questionnaire based survey that involved a random sample from the farmers
whose use fertilizer in nine areas in West Java Province to assess the general attitude towards consumer
preference.

METHODOLOGY
Questionnaires used on a representative sample to horticulture farmers in the West Java Province among
sample size of 456 people. The research was conducted in nine locations in West Java Province, i.e. Bandung,
West Bandung, Bogor, Depok, Garut, Indramayu, Majalengka, Cirebon and Cianjur as representative location of
horticultural production areas which uses fertilizer in the farming activities. The determination of research areas
was based on pareto law. Pareto law (also known as the 80/20 rule) for many events, roughly 80% of the effects
comes from 20 percent of the causes.

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 Determination of attribute for consumer preference between three local brand and one imported fertilizer
brand are based on indicators of fertilizer quality. The fertilizer product attributes are availability, nutrients
content, price, form of fertilizer, decomposition speed, easy to use, label, packaging type, color, design and size
of packaging, hardening process and promotion. All of the attributes analyzed using multi-dimensional scaling.
Multi-dimensional scaling is the problem of representation objects by relevant attributes. It is a model in
multidimensional range build upon proximity in order to represent stimulus or other attraction [9]. It will
describe attributes distance corresponding to experimental similarity and/or dissimilarities between objects [10].
This model figured a graphical display of structure of the data, to understand the arrayed numbers and describe
the essential information from the data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Respondent Characteristics
The descriptive statistics of the demographics information of the sample respondents showed that 56 percent
of the total respondents are primary school graduates, 19 percent are junior high school graduates, 16 percent are
senior high school graduates and less than 6 percent are diploma and bachelor graduates (Table 1). Among the
respondent, 96 percent are male and female only 4 percent of the total respondents. Moreover, about 73 percent
of the total respondents are middle age categories between 40-60 years, 16 percent are adult (range between 30-
39 years old) and 7 percent are above 61 years of age. This considered the range of working age population in
the agricultural sector that are dominating by middle age and graduate from primary school. Age and education
are one of the factors that can influence attitude [11].
TABLE 1. Respondent Characteristics for Demographic Information of the Sample Respondents
in West Java Province
Respondent Category n Percent
Education
Not finished school 19 4
Primary school 256 56
Junior high school 88 19
Senior high school 74 16
Diploma 7 2
Bachelor degree 12 3
Total 456 100
Sex
Male 440 96
Female 16 4
Total 456 100
Farmer Group Participation
Joint in farmer group 206 45
Non joint in farmer group 250 55
Total 456 100
Life Stage (years old)
Adolescent (10-19) 0 0
Young adult (20-29) 16 4
Adult (30-39) 75 16
Middle age (40-60) 333 73
Senior age (more than 61) 32 7
Total 456 100
Farming land area ownership
0-0.20 hectare 81 18
0.21-0.50 hectare 130 29
0.51-10.00 hectare 119 26
More than 1 hectare 126 28
Total 456 100

There were about 29% respondents from the sample expressed as the owner of farming land areas between
0.21-0.5 Ha. In this regard, about 28 percent of the respondents have land above 1 Ha. Consumer preference
also can influence farmers group activities that considered and show that 55 percent of respondents are not

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willing to join farmers group and only 45 percent of the total respondents are member of the farmers group. It is
considered as the farmer’s knowledge about farming activities. Commonly, farmers who as a member of a group
or association have more knowledge and they can get an update information about farming system from the
group. Henceforth, it is impact to the farmer’s behavior on using fertilizer, they are tendency to use fertilizer
based on nutrients content based on soil fertility and plants nutrient needs.
In regard to prefer fertilizer, half of respondents show a stronger preference to imported fertilizer than local
brand, 35 percent of respondents prefer to use local fertilizer brand 1, 20 percent of total respondents prefer to
use fertilizer local brand 2 and 3 respectively (Table 2). Along with that, half of farmers use more 100 Kg
fertilizer per years. There were 18% of total respondents spending 5-100 Kg fertilizer per years. Moreover, 15
percent of respondents are using fertilizer around 1,001-5,000 Kg per year, 13 percent are using fertilizer with
amount between 501-1,000 Kg per years and a few (1.6 percent) of total respondents use fertilizer more than
5,000 Kg per years. It is depending on land areas, soil fertility and commodity that they cultivate.
TABLE 2. Fertilizer Use Characteristics by Sample of Respondents in West Java Province
Fertilizer Use Characteristics N Percent
Amount of NPK use per year (kg)
5-100 82
101-500 241
501-1,000 58
1,001-5,000 69
5,001-10,000 1
10,000-25,000 3
More than 25,000 2
Total 456 100
Brand Preference
Local brand 1 157 34
Local brand 2 79 17
Local brand 3 15 3
Imported brand 205 45
Total 456 100

Consumer Preference on Local and Imported Fertilizer Brand

The main objective of this study was to measure the attitude of fertilizer consumer towards local and
imported brand and to identify the similarity factors that are critical to such preferences (Fig. 1). These findings
so far indicated that the sample respondents have positive attitude towards four fertilizer brands that are
measured by availability and decomposition speed of fertilizer brand, nutrients content, price and hardening
process are found as the critical factors for preferring fertilizer brand.

FIGURE 1. Significances between imported and local fertilizer brand

Usually, farmers with long experience in farming activities more preferred to use fertilizer based on nutrients
content, decomposition speed and availability of products in the markets. Young farmers (20-40 years old) have
more managerial skills and open to business change. It means they are more common about management
practice for fertilizer use than the old ones. The younger farmers have more information about fertilizer use,

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content of nutrients and availability of products in the markets because they can gain the information from
several sources i.e., fertilizer shops, other farmers, internet, farmers group or association, etc. Consumer
preference is based on three basic attitudes i.e., Completeness, transitivity and continuity of products [7].
Completeness in the fertilizer products are basic ingredients, nutrients content, speed decomposition and
availability of products. While transitivity in the fertilizer products are about consumer psychologist perceived
about the products. Hence, it cannot be measured since, it depends on consumer’s perception about the products,
promotion and design of packaging could have an impact on psychology of the consumer to prefer the products.
Continuity of fertilizer depends on consumer satisfaction about the products, it can be measured with several
attribute i.e., price, nutrients content, hardening process, speed of decomposition, availability of products, easy
to use, form of fertilizer, size and design of packaging.

FIGURE 2. Multidimensional scaling of fertilizer brand in West Java Province

Figure 2 illustrated about similarity between products one and others. Regarding to the findings, it shows
that brand 2 as local fertilizer local and imported brand have similarity in term of product availability, price,
decomposition speed and hardening process. On the other side, imported brand have close proximity to
configuration maps. It means that imported fertilizer brand has similarity or proximity with attribute design of
packaging, color, promotion, nutrients content and ease to use. Meanwhile, local brand 1 and 3 have similarity,
it is means that between local brand 1 and 3 exhibits similarity of their own products. The distance between
local brand 1 and 3 is closer than distance between local brand 1 and local brand 2 and/or distance between local
brands 3 and 2.
In addition, based on the findings of all fertilizer brands, local brand 1 and 3 is two products that have
similarity and/or proximity if we look on the distance between the two brands. Local brand 2 is the favorite
fertilizer brand for farmers in the farming activities due to the availability of products, price, decomposition
speed and hardening process. Meanwhile, local brand 2 is having competitor i.e., local brand 1, local brand 3
and imported brand. Meanwhile, in the three competitors, local brand 1 and 3 are the toughest competitor for
local brand 2 because it has similarity with attribute of local brand 2.

CONCLUSION
Positioning becomes a crucial marketing strategy along with determination of market segments and market
targets. Multidimensional scaling as a tool for positioning analysis used to determine recent situation, product
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the marketplace. This study show that imported fertilizer
have similarity and proximity attribute (especially in the attribute of competitiveness in the packaging design,
easy to use, color, promotion and nutrient content) as a competitor of three local brands. Furthermore, local

030012-5
brand 2 is the most favorite fertilizer for farmers to be used in the farming activities. Although local brand 2 has
similarity with local brand 1 and 3 in the availability, price, decomposition speed and hardening process. It is
considered that local brand 2 have competitiveness with imported brand.
In addition, development of competitive advantage local fertilizer industry should improve transitivity of the
attribute, such as promotion and design of packaging. Other than that, local brand should improve their products
attribute to enhance market size and competitiveness. Not only transitivity, local industry also needs to maintain
the nutrients content of their products as a marketing strategy between local brand and imported brand. On the
city market consumer buy a product by looking for wide product range and good appearance and quality of
product. It is illustrated that producer should understand where is the marketing location, who is the competitor
and what kind of products that consumer need and their requirements.

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