Factors influencing the purchase intention of organic personal care products

Abstract

Purchase intention measures the behaviour of the consumer in buying a product. The emergence of organic market has created a demand for beauty and personal care products. Therefore, many factors that lead to the purchase intention of consumers need to be realised by marketers in order to maximise sales and competitiveness in the current marketplace. This study investigated consumer values of personal (environmental consciousness, religious obligation) and perceived (quality and safety) that influence attitude toward the purchase intention of organic personal care product as well as the mediating effect of attitude and mediator roles of brand trust. Hence, purposive sampling technique was employed and a total of 165 female respondents has participated in the quantitative survey of structured self-administrative questionnaires following its validation and constructions before subjected to analysis using structural equation model in SMARTPLS Software. The findings revealed that purchase intention in the consumers was moderate and attitude were powerful force in influencing the buying behaviour. This study also extends the Theory of Planned Behaviour by including perceived value dimensions as the antecedents of attitude in the model. The findings supported most of the hypothesised relationships linking the personal and perceived factors with attitude toward consumer’s purchase intention of organic personal care products. Improved labelling on the packaging would lead to a more positive attitude toward purchase intention by increasing consumer’s confidence via brand trust. In contrast, perceived safety value was not important in predicting attitude. Similarly, the influence of religion obligation on purchase intention was not supported. In terms of ranking with regards to the prediction of purchase intention, environmental consciousness was the most important predictor followed by the perceived quality value.