WHY DO PEOPLE PURCHASE HALAL COSMETICS? AN INTEGRATED MODEL IN SAUDI ARABIA

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:The word Halal (ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) is defined as permissible, or lawful, in accordance to Islamic values. On the other hand, Haram means forbidden or prohibited (Alserhan, 2010; Wilson & Liu, 2010). Halal and Haram are clearly identified in the Islamic law via Quran and Hadith (acts of Prophet Mohammed peace be upon him) in regards to all types of products such as pharmaceutical, cosmetics, finance, investments and toiletries and behaviours. Accordingly, Muslims should be capable of recognising by themselves what is Halal and Haram. Haram acts, or consumption of alcohol, is regarded as a sin in Islamic law, which without repentance will be punished either during current life, or in the life thereafter, psychologically or physically. According to DEW research centre reports, the total Muslim adherents around the world is nearly 1.7 billion which makes up 23.4 per cent of the world's population and this is anticipated to rise to 27.5 per cent of the global population by 2030. Currently the Halal market is approximately $1.62 trillion per year and anticipated to rise up to $2.47 trillion by 2018. The Halal cosmetics market represent 7 per cent of global market with $54 billion, and is expected to reach $80 billion with 6.8% growth during the period of 2014 - 2020 (REUTER & DinarStandard, 2015). Despite reasonable market share for Halal cosmetics, the absence of Halal cosmetics and personal care still remains. In addition, Muslim consumers are largely forced to consume non-Halal cosmetics manufactured by non-Muslim manufacturers, which is expected to be non-Halal compliant components (Abd Rahman, Asrarhaghighi, & Ab Rahman, 2015). As argued by Mukhtar and Mohsin Butt (2012), cosmetics and personal care products have gained increased interest among Islamic marketing scholars due to the fact that most of the global brands include elements obtained from pork as stabilizers causing excessive levels of distrust regarding these brands amongst Muslim consumers who pursue use halal cosmetics and personal care.Although former studies related to Halal marketing were limited, Islamic compliant food and services, revealed that Halal products' consumers are highly loyal to halal brand. Thus their purchasing behaviour would not greatly be affected by economical changes. The high quality halal products usually provided, due to its compliance to Islamic values is increasingly attracting more non-Muslims consumers also (Alam & Sayuti, 2011; Lada, Tanakinjal, & Amin, 2009; Tieman & Ghazali, 2013). Halal products' increasing attractiveness can be related to religious commitment and beliefs that those products are healthier, cleaner and tastier (Lada et al., 2009). The importance of this study has emerged from the fact that Halal cosmetic market though it is a very promising market, according to previous figures, is suffering from a critical dearth of both theoretical and practical knowledge. Additionally, due to the fact that the majority of former studies related to halal products were conducted in one single Muslim community 'Malaysia', as a result, Muslim consumers' behaviour might differ from another Muslim community due to economical, demographical, and cultural value differences (Abd Rahman et al., 2015). The most prior study related to Halal cosmetics suffered from strong limitations, such as lack of cross-Muslim nations' generalisability of their findings due to their relatively small sample size of which the participants' majority fall within one social class criteria i.e., 'low-income level', or are drawn from a single Muslim country. In addition, based on the small sample size, the results are considered biased (Abd Rahman et al., 2015; Alam & Sayuti, 2011; Lada et al., 2009).This study contributes to the existing literature in such a manner: Firstly, it offers an understanding of Muslims' consumption behaviour towards Halal cosmetics and personal care. …