Plant factories are perceived as a sustainable agricultural production system, since they provide a cultivation environment for growing agricultural crops with less resource consumption and no pesticide use. However, as the industry and academic participants have been contributing in the development of plant factory technology, consumer acceptance for the crops cultivated from that technology remains unknown. Without consumer acceptance, all the costs spent in the research and development (RD) of plant factories cannot gain the profit. To address this deficiency, this study was aimed to: (1) investigate consumers’ attitudes, concerns and willingness to pay for the vegetables cultivated with plant factories, (2) explore the branding mode that is most effective for selling plant factory vegetables to consumers, and (3) determine the influence of consumers’ socio-demographics and vegetable purchase behavior for their willingness to pay for plant factory vegetables. With a modified strategy of multi-stage cluster sampling, a consumer survey was conducted and 390 valid questionnaires were obtained for statistical analysis. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistical analysis, analysis of variance, Duncan’s post hoc analysis, and regression analysis to meet the study objectives. The study results indicated that over half of the subjects appreciated the value of plant factory technology. However, as high as 64.4% of the subjects revealed concerns. Most of the concerns were about the issues of environmental pollution and food safety. It also showed that price played a decisive role for consumers’ purchase intentions to plant factory vegetables. Moreover, consumers were more willing to pay a higher price for the plant factory vegetables labeled with an allied brand of academic institutes and private corporations, compared with those labeled with other types of brand. Consumers who had higher income and/or consume more organic vegetables were also more willing to pay for the plant factory vegetables. The study findings help the industry participants to build up effective market strategies for selling the crops cultivated with sustainable plant factory systems.

A high percentage of fresh flowers sold are consumed as gifts in many countries, such as Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. As gift consumption is so important for the sales of fresh flowers, consumer behavior in floral gift giving is investigated in this research. This study explored the consumer decision to purchase fresh flowers as a romantic gift for Valentine’s Day based on 1) relationship stage, 2) affection, and 3) satisfaction with the relationship. The statistical results, based on the data of 366 valid questionnaires collected from a self-administered questionnaire survey, showed that the relationship stage of “personality need fulfillment,” the affection of “passion,” and relationship satisfaction significantly influenced the consumer decision of whether to purchase fresh flowers as romantic Valentine’s Day gifts. Consumers were more likely to buy their intimate partners fresh flowers when they perceived their personality need, such as the need of being loved, was fulfilled in the relationship. When strongly passionate about that relationship, they tended to give fresh flowers in conjunction with other gifts. However, when consumers were more satisfied with their romantic relationships, they were less likely to buy their intimate partners fresh flowers. The study results have valuable implications for florists’ business alliances and advertising campaign development for promoting floral gifts efficiently.

This research aims to analyze the food–energy interactive nexus of sustainable urban plant factory systems. Plant factory systems grow agricultural products within artificially controlled growing environment and multi-layer vertical growing systems. The system controls the supply of light, temperature, humidity, nutrition, water, and carbon dioxide for growing plants. Plant factories are able to produce consistent and high-quality agricultural products within less production space for urban areas. The production systems use less labor, pesticide, water, and nutrition. However, food production of plant factories has many challenges including higher energy demand, energy costs, and installation costs of artificially controlled technologies. In the research, stochastic optimization model and linear complementarity models are formulated to conduct optimal and equilibrium food–energy analysis of plant factory production. A case study of plant factories in the Taiwanese market is presented.

Consumption values are theoretically believed to be the antecedents of the outcomes of consumer purchase choice. In the floral market, even though the context of floral consumption values has been explored, the relationship between floral consumption values and consumer's purchase choice regarding floral products remains unknown. This study, however, seeks to address this deficiency by attempting to evaluate the differences in floral consumption values across consumer groups that have different purchase choices for floral products. After collecting data from a consumer survey, which yielded 615 valid questionnaires, the statistical results indicated that consumers who revealed different purchase choices in regard to flowers had different floral consumption values. In descending order, showing care to others, emotion conditioning, and sensory hedonics were the floral consumption values most strongly recognized by the majority of the consumers. However, heavy users of flowers revealed different characteristics in that they more strongly recognized the psychological value of emotion conditioning rather than the social value of showing care to others. The main difference across consumer groups that had purchased flowers with different frequencies or that preferred to buy different types of flowers had to do with the epistemic value (i.e., curiosity fulfillment). The results of this study imply that consumers who have different choice behavior toward flowers possess different evaluative judgments in regard to floral products. Such differences not only lead consumers to have different purchase choices in regard to flowers, but are also very likely to influence the consumer's behavior in regard to information search and variety seeking in the floral market, which in turn, impacts the effectiveness of commercial communication in the floral market.

Florists have been adopting social media as a new marketing instrument to promote their business. However, academic research has rarely looked into the existing state of that adoption. Consequently, several fundamental problems remain unknown regarding the application of social media marketing (SMM) among florists, which may limit the development of the flower retailing business in the current social media era. In seeking to address this deficiency, this study aimed to investigate florists’ motivations, strategies, and perceived performance in relation to the application of SMM, as well as to explore the barriers faced by florists regarding the adoption of SMM. The authors implemented these objectives by interviewing 35 flower shop owners who each had established a brand page on Facebook. The qualitative data obtained from the interviews were analyzed using a grounded hermeneutic editing approach. The study’s results revealed that even though there were different motivations for florists to adopt social media marketing, including increasing brand exposure, improving customer relationship, and reducing the cost of advertising, showing expertise in floral design to attract consumers was the most common motivation stressed by the interviewees. The strategies mostly used by florists in managing their Facebook brand pages included providing high quality posts, cross-industry advertising, and switching consumers from online questions to a physical store visit. The most significant benefit perceived by florists regarding the use of a Facebook brand page was the development of new customers. Although the interviewees recognized the benefits of adopting SMM, some of them faced great incompatibility in labor source for that adoption. In addition, most interviewees focused on achieving general marketing goals rather than more advanced functions, such as business intelligence, in the application of SMM. The study results implied that the interviews mostly saw Facebook brand pages as a social network platform for increasing current sales volume, rather than for reaching a long-term quality customer relationship, which has deviated from the essence of social media marketing, and thus, limiting the synergy of the application of SMM in the flower retail sector.

Social media are an important approach for florists to reach consumers, and many florists have set incentives to encourage users to engage with their social media pages. However, various subjects can serve as rewards, but what is more effective for encouraging users to engage with the florists’ social media pages remains unknown. This study is intended to address this deficiency. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) to explore the typology of the incentives used by succulent retailers to promote user engagement; (2) to compare the difference across various types of incentives in regard to the effect on promoting user engagement with succulent retailers’ social media pages. Data were gained from the succulent retailers’ empirical practices on their Facebook brand pages. As a result, 2602 Facebook posts were downloaded and analyzed via content analysis to explore the typology of the incentives applied by succulent retailers. The number of clicks on likes, comments, shares, and emojis by users was recorded as the index of user engagement with the post. The effect of various incentives on user engagement with the succulent retailers’ FB pages was analyzed via the statistical approach of MANOVA. The study results showed that the incentives applied by succulent retailers can be classified into three categories: economic incentives; social incentives; mixed incentives, which contain both economic and social values. The economic incentives included discounts, gifts, sweepstakes, and bidding, while social incentives included gratitude to customers, leaving a question mark, and inviting users to respond. The statistical results revealed that economic incentives are more likely to encourage users’ emotional engagement, while social incentives in the form of inviting users to react are more significant for encouraging users’ behavioral engagement in terms of leaving comments on posts.