THE MODERATING EFFECT OF TRUST ON THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PURCHASE INTENTION AND ACTUAL PURCHASE BEHAVIOR OF HERBAL AND AYURVEDIC BEAUTY CARE PRODUCTS

Abstract

The basic premise of the Theory of Planned Behavior suggests that the purchase intention predicts the purchase behavior. However, preliminary survey results revealed that this common association cannot be observed directly since some of the participants who had higher intention to purchase herbal and ayurvedic beauty care products (HABCPs) barely purchased the products. Therefore, what happened in between purchase intention and actual purchase behavior relationship of HABCPs is unclear. Thus, the purpose of this study is to test the effect of trust in the relationship between purchase intention and actual purchase behavior of HABCP. Employing survey strategy and questionnaire method, data were collected from 265 female students of the Faculty of Management Studies of the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka in two-time lags. The data were analyzed by using Hayes’ SPSS Macro Process model. The final fitted model indicates a significant positive impact of purchase intention on actual purchase behavior of HABCPs and significant moderation effect of trust on purchase intention and actual purchase behavior towards HABCPs. Thus, this study provides a vital implication to use TPB in similar future studies. Practically, to increase sales of HABCPs, the managers in the industry should come up with interventions to enhance both the consumers’ purchase intention towards HABCPs and trust on HABCPs.