An Empirical Study of Consumer Perception and Purchase Behaviour Towards Eco-Friendly Products

Abstract

With increasing awareness of sustainability and concern about climate changes, resources, pollution, etc., consumers' attitudes have begun to shift towards more sustainable consumption, but it is generally noted that the "intent-behavior gap" due to consumers' expressed green attitudes and willingness to buy is still prevalent in purchasing eco-friendly products. An extended TAPB model is used to investigate consumer perception and purchase behavior towards eco-friendly products empirically with the introduction of new variables including environmental attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and environmental knowledge as determinants of purchase intention while introducing new variables price sensitivity, product availability and green skepticism as moderators between intention to purchase and purchase behavior. The primary data was obtained from the structured questionnaires filled by 400 urban consumers at various major metropolitan cities of India; the collected data was analysed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, multiple regression analysis and also with the help of structural path analysis. The results show that environmental attitude, environmental knowledge and perceived behavioural control are all significant positive predictor cues for purchase intention which in turn was a significant predictor cue for actual purchase behaviour. Importantly, the study provides evidence of a significant attitude behaviour gap also; eighty eight percent of the respondents claimed the products were available to them and seventy four percent (74%) indicated they have a positive attitude toward the product; only thirty eight percent (38%) claimed that they buy these products regularly with limiting factors of price premium and availability. The results have broadened the scope of the Theory of Planned Behaviour applications in the Indian sustainable consumption scenario and provide practical implications for the marketers, policymakers and green goods manufacturers in order to reduce the gap between environmental concern and intention to buy green product.