Thailand ethnic minority café boom: A mixed methods study of customer demographics and buyer preferences

In recent decades, ethnic-minority-run cafés serving coffee cultivated by ethnic minorities have proliferated in northern Thailand. As the popularity of shops has developed, so have marketing strategies. Today, many ethnic minority entrepreneurs market their ethnic identity through coffee and shop branding. However, there is little evidence regarding how successful this marketing is for influencing customer preferences. This study uses a concurrent mixed method approach that incorporates surveys coupled with semi-structured interviews and group interviews. The results indicate that while customers are often intentional in wanting to support ethnic minority cafés, their support is often not driven by an altruistic desire to support these businesses. Rather, it is more likely to be because the coffee sold in these shops is frequently associated with better taste and quality compared to other options. Apart from surveys, customer interviews were necessary to reach this conclusion. Furthermore, while ethnic minority marketing and branding has become popular in recent years, it appears that these efforts have not led to a more informed customer base in choosing specific ethnic cultivated coffee. Customers, particularly foreign tourists, are often unable to differentiate one ethnic minority branding from another; instead, they frequently see groups as a singular cohesive community.