Perceived quality of and satisfaction from sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) in China: Confirming relationships through structural equations

In recent years, Chile has been the Chinese market’s main supplier of fresh sweet cherries. The aim of this study was to develop a relational model with two working hypotheses to model Chinese consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries as a result of the quality perceived by intrinsic and extrinsic attributes. One hundred and ninety-three buyers in the Sanyuanli Market in the Chaoyang District, Beijing, were surveyed using closed-ended questions on a Likert scale. To develop a model that fulfilled the indicated objective, an exploratory factor analysis and a subsequent system of structural equations were used to confirm the relationships, presenting an adequate goodness-of-fit test to accept the model according to the literature. Among the main results, it was determined that consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries is explained by the perceived intrinsic quality, where medium size and color are the determining attributes, and the product price, Chilean origin and delivery time explain the perceived extrinsic quality (critical ratio of 2.937 and p-value of 0.003). Finally, the intrinsic quality positively and significantly influences Chinese consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries, in contrast to the results for perceived extrinsic quality, which are not statistically significant.