THE EXTRACTION AND SEGMENTATION OF THE HOME PLANT FACTORY IN THE CHINESE MARKET: A CUSTOMER VALUE STUDY

This paper discusses China’s home plant factory market segmentation with two main objectives. First, this study defines the target users whose customer value might be compatible with home plant factories’ characteristics. Second, it classifies those target users in order to help designers understand their attributes and provide specific design directions for them. A questionnaire survey using a Likert scale was conducted on a sample of Chinese customers, whose values were identified by analyzing their attitudes to the home plant factory through factor analysis. The following five factors were extracted: “Quality of vegetables,” “Quality of life,” “Value added,” “Technology,” and “Extra consumption.” The respondents were categorized into four groups according to the factor scores: “Convenient life,’ “Economical life,” “Conservative life,” and “Healthy life.” The Convenient and Healthy life groups were thus determined to be home plant factories’ target users. Their attributes were then discussed and appropriate design directions suggested.