Factors Affecting Purchase Intentions of Home-Based Food Products

Abstract

COVID-19 has severely affected every point of humans’ lives, including making a living, work, education, economy, politics, health systems, and many more. For some people, this unfortunate event is a blessing in disguise, where it has opened the doors for many opportunities and possibilities from a business perspective. Home-based food business, where operators make foods from their houses and sell them to customers, is one of the sectors that are raking in the ‘benefits’ since this pandemic has hit the world. Hundreds of thousands of individuals have lost their employment or had their primary source of income suddenly disappear due to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, many of these people began venturing into home-based food enterprises, formed out of a dire necessity. However, it is important to note that consumers' intentions in purchasing food products from this new sector need to be understood. Associations between factors (health, price and convenience) and purchase intention were measured in this study. A quantitative survey through online questionnaires was used to collect the data from a total of 191 respondents. Regression analysis, apart from descriptive statistics, indicates that all hypotheses based on the above factors are significantly related to food purchase intention, with the ‘price’ as the most influential factor based on the R2 value. Therefore, practitioners are responsible for keeping a close eye on the consumers' intentions to make purchases. Even when the quarantine period is over, customers will continue to exercise caution, and the majority of them will still choose to purchase at home because this is truly a long-term tendency that is expected to remain even after the epidemic is over