Understanding the buying behaviour of young consumers regarding packaging attributes and labels

Abstract

AbstractThis study was conducted in Turkey (the place is the bridge between Europe and Asia) and several factors that might influence the young consumer's behaviour at the point of sale were highlighted. Self‐administered questionnaire consisting of 31 questions were filled out by 324 participants. A big part of respondents (87.34%) were young people between 18 and 25 years of age and majority of the test takers were single (91.05%), whereas only 8.95% of them were married. Relationships and connections between questions were displayed in detail with graphics in a multidimensional space and were analysed with multiple correspondence analysis tests. The results indicated that glass packages attracted the consumers with their protective structure, transparency and healthy nature, whereas plastic and paperboard packages attracted the consumers with their resistance to physical impacts and easy‐to‐use abilities. The majority of consumers checked the labels to get information; however, consumers indicated that label content was hard to understand. Production, best before dates and ingredients were identified as important information on the labels by consumers. Fat content was chosen as the most important part of labels by female consumers, whereas male consumers were more concerned about the protein content. Participants indicated that low price and special offered products were setting the basis for their unplanned shopping. The obtained results confirmed that packaging attributes and labels were the most important factors that might affect consumers' purchasing behaviours.