Packaging attributes and consumer buying behavior of packaged foods in Kenya

Abstract

Understanding consumer buying behaviour and their preference to product attributes has become a key success factor in today’s business environment which is highly competitive and rapidly changing. Consumer are now more discerning and individualistic requiring marketers to gain insights in the buying behaviour of consumers and the attitude they have on product innovation before they make the purchasing decision including the innovation used in elements such as packaging. The general objective of this studywas to determine the effect of packaging attributes on consumer’s buying behaviour of packaged foods in Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine whether packaged food graphics, colour, size, shape, product information and packaging material influence consumer’s buying behaviour in Kenya. The study was supported by the Theory of reasoned action and Kano’s theory of attractive quality. The study used descriptive and explanatory research design. A sample of 385 shoppers from three supermarkets in Nairobi was selected using simple random sampling while datawas collected using structured questionnaires. The selection of supermarkets was based on judgmental sampling in which location and foot traffic was considered. Validity of the research instruments focused on content validity, construct and face validity. Content validitywas established by the academic supervisor of this study, construct validity was established by administering theoretical and conception reviews during the preparation of the questionnaire while face validity was established through the review of the academic supervisor of this study. Reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated using the Cronbach alpha test, which provided an acceptable threshold of 0.8192. Variance Inflation factor (VIF) was also used to confirm multicollinearity in which the results indicated that all variables’ VIF ranged between 1 to 4 hence there was no multicollinearity. Equality of variance was also evaluated using levene test which resulted to less than 0.05 showing that there no heteroscedasticity. Normality of the variables was also tested using skewness and kurtosis. The results confirmed that the data collected was normally distributed with a P-value greater than 0.05. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics in the form of mean, percentages and standard deviations, and inferential statistics in the form of correlation tests and regression analysis. The data was represented in tables. The study found a statistically significant relationship between graphics colour, packaging size, shape, product information, packaging material and consumer’s buying behaviour. More so, this study found out that that among all the attributes, package information has the most impact on purchase decisions of packaged foods. The study concluded that the packaging attributes examined, contribute in communicating product quality and features in a manner that affects purchase behaviour. The study recommends that foodmanufacturers understand consumer response to their packages, and integrate the inputs into designing the best packaging style. This can be achieved by involving consumers in the process of packaging so that the right decisions are made without making any assumption regarding the final packaging of food products. This study is beneficial to new and existing food product manufacturers in coming up with strategies and in development of product packaging. Students and researchers can benefit from this research by using the study as a reference point in their study on consumer behaviour and packaging. Additionally, they can formulate studies that further examine each attribute and its effect on product packaging, explain the impact of packaging attributes on other product categories, or conduct a comparative study to possibly identify the different effects of packaging attributes on a variety of types of products.