The Factors affecting Young Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Green Products

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting young consumers’ purchase intention of green products in Sri Lanka, due to the lack of studies that deliberate green issues in the Sri Lankan context though environmental disputes increasingly affect every side of human life. Moreover, based on the prior researches, this study focuses on three variables that influence on young consumers’ purchase intention of green products such as environmental attitude, environmental knowledge and social influence. Three hypotheses were developed based on the constructed conceptual framework derived from the marketing and consumer behavior literature. The data were collected over a survey technique by conveniently administering structured questionnaires from 150 young consumers in Sri Lanka. First, the analysis was carried out the factor analysis to explore the significance of influencing factors of young consumers’ purchase intention, and multiple regression analysis was performed to explore the factors that influence on young consumers’ purchase intention of green products. The results of the regression analysis indicated that all three variables (i.e., environmental attitude, environmental knowledge and social influence) have a significant and positive impact on young consumers’ purchase intention of green products in Sri Lanka. Moreover, it suggested that the environmental attitude variable was the most significant while social influence was the less significant variables towards young consumers’ purchase intention. The findings of this study provide new insights to marketers to formulate appropriate strategies for promoting green purchase behavior among young consumers in Sri Lanka. Moreover, the study unveiled that marketers need to understand the path that moves the environmental factors to green purchase intention to successfully enhance and redefine the new target markets. The most significant precursor which affects the green purchase intention of Sri Lankan young consumers is environmental attitude followed by environmental knowledge and social influence. But, this study evaluates the construct of purchase intention as an expressed intention for green products based on cross-sectional approach rather than actual purchase for such products. Hence, future scholars should adopt a longitudinal approach in their studies by focusing on changes in consumers purchase intention.

Keywords: Environmental attitude, environmental knowledge, green marketing, green purchase intention, social influence