Understanding the Impact of Situational Factors on Green Purchase Intention in Retailing: A Study of Young Consumers

Abstract

Much research has been devoted to understanding sustainable consumption using factors from the theory of planned behaviour. However, very few researchers have studied the role of situational factors in this context. The present study is aimed to analyse the impact of preference of retail store and transportation mode on green purchase intention, which in turn affects sustainable consumption behaviour among retail consumers. A survey by questionnaire method was used to collect data from young Indian consumers from Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, data was collected through online mode from 280 respondents by adopting quota sampling. Linear regression analysis was performed to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings of the study reveal that the preference for retail stores have a significant positive effect on green purchase intention while transportation mode has a significant negative impact on green purchase intention. The two situational factors explain more than 27% of the variance in consumers' intention to purchase green products. The study also reported a significant positive impact of green purchase intention on sustainable consumption among young retail consumers. Finally, green purchase intention explained a 63% variance in sustainable consumption.