Consumers’ Perceptions, Attitudes and Purchase Intention ...

1 Asian Journal of Business and Management Sciences ISSN: 2047-2528 Vol. 2 No. 8 [73-90]. Consumers' perceptions , Attitudes and Purchase Intention towards Private Label Food Products in Malaysia Siti Nurafifah Jaafar Department of Food Science Faculty of Agrotechnology & Food Science University Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu Terengganu Darul Iman, MALAYSIA. Corresponding author: Pan Ein Lalp Department of Food Science Faculty of Agrotechnology & Food Science University Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu Terengganu Darul Iman, MALAYSIA. Mohaini Mohamed@Naba Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management UiTM Terengganu, Sura Hujung 23000 Dungun, Terengganu Darul Iman, MALAYSIA. ABSTRACT. The onset of inflation drives the rising of living cost. The rise of private label market provides an alternative selection for consumers during purchasing. There is very limited research regarding private label food product in Malaysia. This research focused on factors that may influence consumers'.

2 Intention to Purchase private label food product in a state in Malaysia. Factors examined are extrinsic factors which include perceived price', packaging', advertisement' and store image'; intrinsic factors ( perceived quality', perceived risk' and perceived value') and consumers' Attitudes (in terms of trust, familiarity and perceived economic situation). All responses were collected by using questionnaire through convenience sampling (n=100). Data was analyzed to obtain descriptive statistics, comparing mean analysis ( independent t-test and ANOVA) and other analyses ( correlation analysis and multiple linear regressions). Result shows that perceived value' becomes prominent in consumers' purchasing of private label brand food product, followed by other factors. Almost all independent variables are associated with Purchase Intention towards private label brand food products. The most significant factor that influencing consumers' Purchase Intention towards private label food products are consumers' attitude' and perceived price'.

3 Consumers' past purchasing experience with the private label food products may also influence their perception towards price, packaging, store image and trust of those products. This study adds new knowledge regarding public purchasing behavior towards private label product. Retailers are anticipated to better understand the factors influencing the Purchase and re- Purchase Intention of private label food products which could better improve the standard of private label food products in the local market. Keywords: private label product, Purchase Intention , consumer attitude, own label brand Society for Business Research Promotion | 73. Asian Journal of Business and Management Sciences ISSN: 2047-2528 Vol. 2 No. 8 [73-90]. INTRODUCTION. Unfavorable economic condition and the rise of living cost were the most worrying problems in Malaysia. This scenario occurs because of slow down of global economic and onset of inflation. Due to the economic downturn, there is an imbalance income level with the increasing of living cost.

4 Therefore, most of the consumer started to change their shopping habits and being more sensitive to the price of the goods. The growth of international hypermarket retailers into Malaysian market is rising. Tesco owns a 30% market share of the Malaysian hypermarket industry by sales, followed by Giant (24%), Jusco (22%) and carrefour (15%) (Seelan, 2010). Global finance crisis had dramatically affected global economic. Inflation pressure pulls the rising of living cost in Malaysia. This creates an opportunity in increasing demand of private labeled product in Malaysia (Chen, 2009). Expansion of large retailers gives a big shock to the market of manufacturer branded product since 1970 (Strategist team, 2007). Private label products provide low price product but meet their basic need to drive in more consumers toward purchasing of their product (Nielsen, 2008). In order for them to increase margin, they manufactured their own product and sell them in specific chain of store.

5 Their strategy is to manufacture an alternative branded product under a low price with equal quality of branded product. Retailer is able to provide low cost product in order to have a stand in the market. Traditionally, private label product is packaged in white colored packet with a black typeface and it is always located at the bottom of the rack (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007a). Nowadays, retailers started to improve the quality and packaging of the private label product to become ideal product. Thus, allowing private label fix in an ideal marketing strategy and giving an option to customers on low price product (generally economical value), standard (price not expensive, but comparable quality product) to premium product (good in quality that might be equally or surpass the goods that been offer by manufacturer brands). Furthermore, they began to innovate on value by using source and supply chain efficiencies to offer lower price without compromising on quality (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007b).

6 Therefore, those retailers are able to attract more consumers and thus promote local brand goods to consumer in order to prevent for the foreign exchange flight. consumer behavior studies focusing on private label brand is very limited especially in the Malaysian context. This study is therefore intended to close this gap in the literature, which is aimed to understand consumers' Purchase Intention in general and to determine the factors influencing Purchase Intention of private label brand food products. Besides, this study is also aimed to compare the difference in consumers' perception and Attitudes towards private label food products if they have or do not have experience with those products. The objectives of this research are: To determine factors perceived to be important in the Purchase of private label food products. To determine factors those predict Purchase Intention of private label food products. To compare perception of extrinsic factors, intrinsic factors and consumers'.

7 Attitudes among consumers who have and do not have past purchasing experience with the private label food products. LITERATURE REVIEW. Introduction of private label product Private label product is defined as the only trademark, which can only been found on the packaging and sold in a specific chain of store in low price (Hoch, 1996). Retailers control private label product where they can decide the marketing activities such as advertising, packaging and wholesale price and investments of inventory (Chen, 2008). Private label product is usually low in price and hence become an alternative product choice for consumers (Walker, 2006). However, consumers who judge product by quality Society for Business Research Promotion | 74. Asian Journal of Business and Management Sciences ISSN: 2047-2528 Vol. 2 No. 8 [73-90]. will be less likely to Purchase private label product. They believe quality is more important than price (Ailawadi et al., 2001; Richardson et al., 1996a).

8 Based on previous studies, consumers begin to accept the private brand and believed that private label product represent good value for price (Laaksonen and Reynolds, 1994). Purchase Intention Consumers' buying decision is very complex. Usually purchasing Intention is related with consumers' behavior, perception and their attitude. Purchase behavior is an important key point for consumers during considering and evaluating of certain product (Keller, 2001). Ghosh (1990) stated that Purchase Intention is an effective tool use in predicting purchasing process. Once the consumers decide to Purchase the product in certain store, they will be driven by their Intention . However, Purchase Intention might be altered by the influence of price, quality perception and value perception (Zeithaml, 1988) and Grewal et al (1998). In addition, consumers will be interrupted by internal impulse and external environment during purchasing process. Their behavior will be driven by the physiological motivation that stimulates their respond which bring them to the retail store to fulfill their need (Kim and Jin, 2001).

9 Factors influencing Purchase Intention towards private label product There are numbers of study on private label product in foreign study however there is no specific research on Purchase Intention towards private label product in Malaysia. With respect to private label food products, several studies have been carried out in the past to determine the consumers' motivation, perception, preference and behavior on food products (Beneke, 2008; Munusamy and Wong 2008, Boutsouki et al., 2008; Thang et al., 2009). There is only one study on consumers' Intention of buying own label premium food products (Chaniotakis et al., 2010), which guided the present study. Based on the study of Chaniotakis et al (2010), factors that influencing consumers' Purchase Intention are consumers' Attitudes ', extrinsic factors' and intrinsic factors' of the products. Consumers' attitude towards private label products Consumers' attitude is an important factor in influencing consumers' Purchase Intention towards private label product (Chaniotakis et al.)

10 2010). Consumers' attitude includes trust in private label product', familiarity' and perceived economic situation'. Chaniotakis et al. (2010) stated that the way of thinking' influence consumers' Purchase Intention as well as perceived of economic situation. A study found that, consumers would try to save more money by purchasing private label product during economic downturn and once the condition turn to be better; they will shift back to their familiar brands (Conroy, 2010). This is because when the product is familiar to a person; he or she will define the product in such a good way. Therefore, in order to build up trust on private label product, retailers should let consumers feel confident with their product (Broadbridge and Morgan, 2001 as cited by Chaniotakis et al., 2010). Trust in private label product is influenced by perceived benefit, which means that perceived price-quality affects consumers' attitude. Once purchasing is made, internal memory arise from Purchase experiment along with external memory arise by the information received would play their role in the purchasing process (Bettman, 1979).