Thesis (BS Agribusiness Economics) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, May 2019

Rich Philippine marine biodiversity brought availability of various fishes and seafood in the market. Zamboanga City is one of the top contributors in the national fish production and the seafood retail industry is fast progressing. The main objective of this study is to assess the different factors consumers consider on choosing retail outlets. Multinomial Logit Model is the standard method used to assess the three dependent variables namely supermarket, wet market, or street hawkers. STATA version 12 was used to process the data that was gathered from 300 respondents using survey and convenience method. Based on the results, monthly income, educational attainment and age has a positive effect, while civil status and gender has a negative impact on the consumers on choosing supermarket over other retail outlets. Monthly income has a negative impact while budget allocation has a positive effect on the consumers choosing wet market over other retail outlets. Lastly, budget allocation has a negative effect on the consumer who purchase seafood in tilapia over other retail outlets. Majority of the consumers from Zamboanga City choose to buy seafood in the wet market. The top five most purchased seafood are Matambaka, Galungong, Kabalyas, Squid and Shrimps. Moreover, most of the respondents have observed increased in prices of the seafood after the implementation of TRAIN Law which resulted to changes in consumer behavior and shifts on retail outlet choices. The freshness of the seafood and unfair weighing scales used by the sellers are the main issues in the industry. With this, the study recommends for the market administrator in different retail outlets to conduct appropriate policies to address the issues identified and for the future related studies to use an intercept method to directly interview respondents from the retail outlets to avoid bias on the data