Donation or Discount: Effect of Promotion Mode on Green Consumption Behavior

Jun Zou,Yifan Tang,Han Li,Amar Razzaq,Ping Qing

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041912

Abstract

Environmental issues are still challenging and of global concern. To improve the environmental consumption behavior of consumers, this study investigates whether the match between the promotion mode and product type can improve the conceptual fluency of consumers, so as to increase their purchase intention for green products. The results of three experiments reveal that the interaction between promotion mode and product type has a certain impact on the conceptual fluency of consumers, which can, in turn, promote their purchase intention. This research theoretically contributes to the research on green consumption by introducing promotion mode and revealing the mediation effect of conceptual fluency, it also provides some practical implications for alleviating environmental problems.

Highlights

Introduction on Green Consumption BehaviorInt.Solving global environmental problems is still full of challenges, which are closely associated with consumer ignorance or disapproval of green products
We reveal the mechanism underlying the match between promotion mode and product type and demonstrate that only when the green product is promoted with a donation promotion will the conceptual fluency during purchase be higher, which, in turn, leads to higher purchase intention
To further test the interactive effect, we conducted a simple effect analysis and found that in the scenario of green products, donation promotion can lead to higher purchase intention than discount promotion (Mdonation = 5.70, SD = 0.86; Mdiscount = 4.76, SD = 1.11, F = 15.51, p < 0.001), while in the scenario of common products, there is no significant difference between donation promotion and discount promotion (Mdonation = 4.89, SD = 1.36; Mdiscount = 4.76, SD = 1.09, F = 0.28, p = 0.601), which supports Hypothesis 2 (H2)

Summary

Introduction

Solving global environmental problems is still full of challenges, which are closely associated with consumer ignorance or disapproval of green products. It is crucial to continuously and substantially promote the green buying behavior of consumers. Extensive research has focused on the factors that influence consumers’ purchase intentions of green products. Most of them explained green consumption behavior from the perspective of consumers themselves [4,5,6,7,8]. Some researchers have found that consumers’ green product purchase intentions can be affected by environmental factors, such as product eco-labels [9] and carbon label placement [10]. Promotion mode, an extremely important factor in product sales, has been largely ignored in previous studies

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Conclusion