Buying Behavior of Indian Females Toward Natural Personal Care Products: The Moderating Role of Buying Frequency

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate whether consumer values (appearance consciousness, health consciousness, and environmental consciousness), openness to change, and perceived benefits influence purchase intentions and buying behavior of natural personal care products. Furthermore, the article also investigates the moderating role of consumer buying frequency on purchase intention and buying behavior. This article is based on the argument that consumer values (appearance consciousness, health consciousness, and environmental consciousness) are likely to be reflected in purchase intention and buying behavior if consumers are open to change and perceive the benefits of natural personal care products. The theoretical framework is derived from the Stimulus–Organism–Behavior–Consequence framework. The study proposes consumer values act as a stimulus, openness to change and perceived benefits as an organismic internal state, purchase intention as behavior, and buying preferences as a consequence. The study’s findings reveal some interesting insights. First, all three consumer values exhibit a positive influence on openness to change among consumers. However, when it comes to influencing perceived benefits, it is primarily the environmental and appearance consciousness that showed effective influence on perceived benefits. We believe that marketing strategies for natural personal care products should consider consumer values and effectively communicate how natural products enhance appearance and are environment-friendly. Consumers have increasingly become concerned about the harmful effects of conventional personal care products and are willing to adopt safer alternatives. Unlike the organic food industry in natural personal care products, consumers’ health consciousness does not significantly affect the perceived benefits. We also found that purchase frequency substantially moderates the relationship between perceived benefits-purchase intentions and purchase intention-buying behavior. The association is stronger for high purchase frequency than low and medium.