The purpose of fair trade (FT) initiatives is to provide fair and reasonable payment to producers who may otherwise be negatively affected by free trade. Attracting consumers to purchase FT products is key to the success of the FT movement. This study identified the effects of consumers’ perceived justice of FT organizations (FTOs) on their purchase intention toward FT products. A total of 398 valid questionnaire responses were received and structural equation modeling was adopted to assess the casual relationships between variables. The results indicate that (a) perceived distributive, procedural, and interactional justice of FTOs among consumers positively affected trust in FTOs; (b) perceived distributive and procedural justice exhibited positive effects on perceived effectiveness of FT; and (c) trust in FTOs and perceived effectiveness of FT among consumers positively affected their purchase intention toward FT products. Based on these findings, this study provides practical suggestions to FT-related businesses and organizations, enabling these entities to accurately determine directions for the promotion and marketing communications of FT products.

Introduction

The fair trade (FT) movement originated from the unfair trade relations between colonizing states and colonies (Hulm, 2006). The least developed countries in the third world lack comparative advantages in the production of agricultural goods and are at an absolute disadvantage in trading those goods; thus, global free trade of agricultural goods harms these countries (Skarstein, 2007). The FT movement was created to address this inequity. The promotion of FT enables consumers to understand production processes and use their purchasing power to provide reasonable returns to producers from the third world, thereby eliminating the negative impact of trades on producers. However, the market shares of FT products are still low (Brunner, 2014). The success of the FT movement depends on consumers’ active and continuous purchasing of FT products; thus, influential factors in consumer purchase intentions toward FT products are essential concerns for FT organizations (FTOs) and relevant businesses. Several studies have examined the determinants of consumption behaviors related to FT products. For example, studies have documented that consumers’ decisions to buy FT products are associated with their perceived social justice (Wilkinson, 2007; Rios et al., 2015). However, empirical studies have not focused on the effects of FTOs’ perceived justice on consumer decisions. Moreover, according to the justice framework, justice can be defined as the customer’s assessment of fairness from three perspectives—distributive, procedural, and interactional justice—(Lin et al., 2011), whereas studies have not examined the role of these three constructs of consumer justice perceptions of FTOs in affecting the consumption decision of FT products.