Methodological principles of market segmentation of vegetable products using cluster analysis in the business environment

The cluster model of business organization has several advantages. In the presence of a cluster, marketing structures, which are created for the purpose of marketing support for the activities of enterprises taking into account the infrastructure of the vegetable market, are formed. This approach allows small-scale agricultural enterprises to avoid the growth of conditionally fixed costs and to increase performance of activity. At the same time, it's important to understand that clustering enables producers of vegetable products not only to jointly promote their products, but also to form an effective marketing support system for the activities of each enterprise. In this article authors have formed the essence of cluster analysis on the basis of the research of domestic and foreign scientists. The methodology of cluster analysis is generalized for vegetable enterprises. The use of methods of cluster analysis is proposed for the study of the regional vegetable market and consumer groups of vegetable products. Analytical and graphical possibilities of application of the software package STATISTICA are shown for multivariate grouping of consumers of vegetable products. A dendrogram of consumer preferences of vegetable products in a supermarket has been constructed. The authors used hierarchical clustering of consumers of vegetable products on the basis of Ward’s method, as an agglomeration plan. It is proved that the proposed methods should be used in the further practical activity of marketing services at the enterprises of the vegetable industry and their integration formations. The article justifies expediency the inclusion of psychographic and behavioral features in the segmentation of the market of vegetable products with cluster analysis, which will enable the marketing service to take into account the needs and demands of consumers in detail, establish the degree of their loyalty that is, the relation to vegetable production, its packaging and qualitative characteristics. The control of this technique is important not only for the marketer who carries out marketing researches, but also for employees of the marketing department of a small vegetable company.