Green product awareness effect on green purchase intentions of university students’: an emerging market’s perspective

Abstract

The indiscriminate consumption patterns worldwide have brought in its wake severe problems like pollution and global warming, and this has ultimately called for green products awareness and consumption. The main purpose of this study was to assess the effect of university students’ awareness of green products on their green purchasing intentions. The specific objectives were to identify whether awareness, price, availability, value and quality influence university students’ intention to purchase green products, and to investigate how awareness, price, availability, value and quality predict university students’ intention to purchase green products. A structural equation modeling was used to analyze data collected from an online survey of 478 students. Results show that green perceived quality has the utmost significant positive impact on university students’ green purchase intentions; however, green perceived availability had the slightest impact on university students’ intention to purchase green products. The study is the foremost to conclude that green product awareness impact on university students green purchase intentions is greatly driven by price, high value and extraordinary quality. However, availability is not a critical influencing factor when it comes to green purchase intentions of university students. The implications of study, limitations and further research are discussed.

Analysing the Influence of Companies’ Green Communication in College Students’ Green Purchase Behaviour: An Application of the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour Model

“…The purpose was to understand how important companies' communication is in the students' intention to purchase green products, and the results confirmed the existence of a positive relationship. As stressed by previous research (e.g., Flavián et al 2005;Ko et al 2013;Chang 2015;Chen et al 2020;Ansu-Mensah 2021;Kamalanon et al 2022), a company's positive green image and its communication tend to increase consumers' purchase intention and have significant impacts on purchase decisions. Based on the TPB, an individual's belief directly translates to actual behaviour; thus, if a consumer trusts a green company, then he or she will continue to purchase its products (Zhuang et al 2021).…”

Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior toward Green Products: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The factors that were grouped in this category also refer to green product knowledge [ 40 , 50 , 63 , 65 ], natural environmental orientation [ 67 ], green habit [ 67 ], knowledge about environmental damage and pollution [ 71 ], attitudes toward environmental protection [ 71 ], environmental concern habit [ 40 ], environmental consciousness [ 37 , 58 , 61 , 64 ], attitudes toward environmental issues [ 64 ], green trust [ 40 , 50 , 54 , 66 ] green involvement [ 54 ], environmental beliefs [ 59 , 60 ], environmental awareness [ 5 , 50 , 59 ], environmental concerns [ 36 , 58 , 59 ], green attitudes [ 50 , 61 ], drive for environmental responsibility [ 36 , 42 ], perceived ecological value [ 44 ], green practices [ 46 ], green product awareness [ 44 , 45 ], and consumer social responsibility [ 54 ].…”

“…Zhang and Dong (2020) [ 55 ] claim that a green product needs to be credible in order to be appreciated by potential buyers, so the eco-label can affect the consumers’ buying behavior [ 55 ]. In addition, besides eco-labels, consumers are taking into account other aspects such as the quality of the green products [ 45 , 51 , 55 , 57 , 70 ] or the awareness about green products [ 44 , 45 , 54 , 55 ], with all of them having a significant impact on consumer behavior toward green products.…”

“…After analyzing the selected papers, the authors of this research concluded that consumer behavior toward green products can be influenced by the following product characteristics: price [ 45 , 57 ], quality [ 45 , 51 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 64 , 70 , 71 ], availability [ 45 , 46 , 55 , 68 ], packaging [ 55 ], eco-label [ 45 , 46 , 55 ], material [ 46 ], functional value [ 46 ], and green product information [ 64 ].…”

“…The availability of green products is an important factor that can positively influence consumer behavior toward green products [ 45 ]. This factor can also influence the consumers’ buying behavior, because they can choose between different types of green products or different brand names.…”