Influence of social factors on green purchasing intentions

Abstract

In the recent years, the need for production, distribution, consumption and disposal of green consumer products has increasingly attracted anthropological studies. With the ever increasing global population, the market for consumer products has increased which has in turn forced overexploitation of the natural resources, leading to depletion of natural resources. In line with this, this study sort to establish the influence of consumer traits which included external factors (collectivism) and social factors (environmental visibility and subjective norms) on the intention to purchase green consumer products. The study employed qualitative study approach to collect data from 300 participants, found shopping for green products within three shopping malls in Jeddah, KSA. Data was analyzed using SPSS Version 22 with ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation analysis. The findings established that all the three confounding factors; collectivism, environmental visibility and subjective norms showed significant subjective correlation to the consumer intention to purchase green products. However, the findings indicated that environmental visibility had the strongest impact on the green purchase intention as compared to collectivism and subjective norms since it had the highest F value. The study integrated consumer traits into green consumer awareness to establish the impact of social factors on the green products purchasing intentions. The study also outlined the need managers to devise integrate consumer characteristics in strategies for marketing green products. More so, the study expressed the need for future studies to capture the consumer characteristics from a larger geographical perspective.