Moderated mediation role of ethnicity on natural skin care products purchasing intention model among multicultural consumers

PLoS One. 2024 Mar 21;19(3):e0300376. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300376. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

The trends for sustainable lifestyle and marketing motivated natural product consumption, such as natural skin care products (NSCPs). Different personal, environmental, and sociocultural factors influence purchase intention (PI) for NSCPs. However, there is a lack of evidence on the role of consumers' ethnicity in the PI model. The present study investigated the moderated mediation role of ethnicity in the relationship between related factors, including environmental concern, subjective norms, health factor, Halal certificate, packaging design, past experience factor, price factor, and PI mediated by personal attitude. A web-based survey was utilized to capture quantitative data from a random sample of 330 multicultural consumer group participants. The results of the study indicated that consumers' ethnicity substantially moderated the mediation effect of personal attitude in the relationships between subjective norms, health factor, Halal certificate, packaging design, past experience factor, price factor, and PI in the model. The findings contributed to understanding of the factors that influenced the PI of consumers from diverse sociocultural contexts in the market for natural products. It contributed directly to natural product marketing and industry.

MeSH terms

  • Biological Products*
  • Consumer Behavior
  • Ethnicity
  • Humans
  • Intention*
  • Skin Care

Substances

  • Biological Products

Grants and funding

Funding 1. Research Management Centre, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Role: Funding the publication fee, Data collection, and data analysis (partially). 2. IINTI International University Seed Grant, No. (INTI-FHLS-01-26-2023). Role: Funding the publication fee (partially). 3. IINTI International University Seed Grant, No. (INTI-FHLS-11-03-2023). Role: Funding the publication fee (partially). 4. Department of Food Sciences, Faculty Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, No (ST-2019-013): Funding the publication fee (partially). 5. Department of Food Sciences, Faculty Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, No. (UKM-TR-018). Role: Data collection, and data analysis (partially). 6. Department of Food Sciences, Faculty Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, No. (ST-2021-010) Role: Preparation of the manuscript.