Effect of environmental variables on Green Buying Intention in different Purchase Situations

Abstract

Green Marketing acquired high importance due to governmental regulations applicable across sectors. These regulations follow global changes in economic relations, political alignments, environmental treaties and technological developments. As per Raju et al (2012), biofuel production in India increased from 0.01 million tonnes to 21.0 million tonnes in 2010. Different climate change conferences like the one concluded in Doha recently influence global view on sustainability. Industry also follows the global view and has embraced Green Marketing. Many firms have upgraded to environment friendly technology and have modified their promotions. This includes new greener products by Unilever, ITC, McDonalds, Whirlpool, Indian Oil, Wipro, and Nerolac. This also includes environment friendly services by Tata group, State Bank of India and others in India. Consumer research on analyzing effect of such factors on consumer purchase intention in different buying situations is yet to be done. This research aims to study effect of these environmental variables on Green Buying Intention in different Purchase Situations. Participants had to choose one out of six listed products that they can recall to have bought recently. Questions utilized Likert-type scale for six preference options. Elements of Marketing Mix varied were product quality (product), price, promotion and availability (place). Determination of factors is done by utilizing procedures (Bryant and Yarnold, 1995; Brown, 2009; Malhotra and Dash, 2009) of Percent of Cumulative Variance, Kaiser’s Stopping Rule, Scree Test, Number of non-trivial factors and Split-half reliability. Consumers’ preference towards green products is higher if these provide combination of societal benefit, environmental benefit, economic sense and improved technology. Example of this is usage of CNG driven vehicles in cities like Delhi, India. This required consumer to first incur expenses and then recover those by reduced cost of usage. In case of Extended PSBS, GovtRegulation has ‘very good’ factor loading on first component. Consumers have relatively high abundance of time and there is high involvement of consumer in case of Extended PSBS like buying of a car/house. Implications: Efforts in Green Marketing need to be differently focused in different buying conditions. On one hand, some factors affect both types of purchase situations. Companies need to ensure that Society, Environment, Economy, and Technology should be given due importance in their overall green marketing programs irrespective of the type of purchase situation. On the other hand, Quality and Govt Regulation behave differently in each purchase situation. In good economic conditions, a product of habitual PSBS having good quality and availability will be bought by consumers readily. Also, consumers in habitual PSBS intend to purchase a green product if regulation supports promotion and price. Contrast this with Extended PSBS, in which Quality combines with Technology and Price since consumers take long time in deciding the final alternative in this buying situation. Also, Govt Regulation combines with other macro factors like Society, Environment and Economy to indicate that sustainable products in case of Extended PSBS need acceptance by Society and Economy along with regulations by the Government. Therefore, Purchase situation plays key role in shaping purchase intention of consumers. Companies have to consider the type of purchase situation in designing their Green Marketing programs.