The aim of this study was to understand door-to-door salespersons' awareness of health functional food and education level, and to identify the relationship between sales effect and to serve as a basis for future door-to-door salesperson education and...
The aim of this study was to understand door-to-door salespersons' awareness of health functional food and education level, and to identify the relationship between sales effect and to serve as a basis for future door-to-door salesperson education and roles. The research developed structured questionnaires such as general characteristics of door-to-door salespersons, health functional food awareness and consumption, education level, sales, and purchases, etc.. The survey was conducted with 302 door-to-door salespersons working in the company for 6 days from February 23 to 28, 2022. The survey data were statistically analyzed using the SAS and AMOS programs. As a result, respondents in their 50s and 60s and those who worked for 10 to 20 years or more accounted for a large proportion, and the household income level was the highest with less than 1 to 2 million won. In terms of health functional food intake, the highest answer was ‘yes’ to the questions about whether they were aware of the necessity of health functional food, their interest in information, and their level of understanding of health, respectively. As for the reason for health functional food intake, ‘disease (adult disease) prevention’ was the highest response rate at 42%, and the most important thing was the ‘product's functionality’. In terms of health functional food education, 94.7% of respondents received education, and the frequency of participating in the education was the highest ‘5 times or more’, and the training time was the highest for ‘20 to 30 minutes’. After training, 'Very active' was the highest for the use of educational contents, and 56% of the respondents answered that it was helpful for sales. The preferred education method was face-to-face education by in-house instructors (59%), and the additional desired education method was the invitation of a professional external instructor (such as a doctor). In this study, to confirm the variables that additionally affect the awareness of health functional food, we extracted three questions asking whether people are aware of the necessity of health functional food, their level of interest in information, and their understanding of their health, and defined it as awareness. The response score of each question was scored on a scale of 1 to 9, and then categorized into 4 groups. After selecting significant items by frequency analysis by group, regression analysis of education level, awareness, and sales effect was performed. As a result, the more respondents answered, 'the household income is high' and ‘the education is helpful and useful in sales', the higher the recognition and sales effect. The structural equation model analysis results for all significant items, it was concluded that raising the awareness of door-to-door salespersons and increasing the use of education would be important factors to increase the sales effect of health functional food. Although the proportion of online and non-face-to-face sales is increasing in the consumption market for health functional foods, face-to-face sales by door-to-door salesperson are also being used as an important means of sales for companies. Therefore, it is expected that this study can be used as basic data for the development of various educational contents that can improve the educational utilization and awareness of door-to-door salesperson.