HOW GREEN MARKETING TOOLS SHAPE CONSUMER PURCHASE BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Consumers have more concerned about the ‘green concept’ and thus lead the industry to focus on ‘green marketing’ with the rapid increase in environmental and health considerations. In the Asian context, the studies on green marketing are still in their initial stages and more research is needed to gain its full potential within the market. As green marketing has become a novel and emerging concept in the Sri Lankan market, the present study focused to identify the consumer awareness and attitude towards green products while evaluating the consumer perception towards selected green marketing tools; eco-labelling, eco-branding and eco-packaging. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 150 randomly selected residents in Mapalana Magin Pahala Grama Niladari Division. Results indicated that the female consumers were willing to pay a premium price for green products to conserve the environment. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the income and education level have a highly significant contributions towards the consumers’ purchase intention towards green products and the majority (82.7%) and used the products promoted by green marketing (52%) due to their high quality. Furthermore, the results of independent sample t-test revealed that the gender significantly shapes eco-labelling, eco-branding and eco-packaging attributes on consumer purchase behaviour. Hence, the findings will be instrumental for marketers and policymakers for the effective implementation of green marketing tools while considering gender and other attributes in particular.