Consumer perception and purchase intention towards natural personal care products

Abstract

This study aims at understanding the perception of personal care consumers towards Natural Personal Care Products (NPCP). Next, we want to study the gap that exists between this perception and purchase intention for NPCP. To do this we want to first find out the level of consumer awareness about NPCP. Consumer perception covers many aspects and the following are the aspects that we tried to uncover through this study. First, what the terms organic or natural mean to different individuals. Second, the important parameters that individuals use to judge the ‘naturalness’ of a product. Third, how much importance do they associate to a given organic product compared to its inorganic counterpart. Fourth, the inherent value/belief in the customer that influences their perception towards organic products. Next, we proceeded to understand the purchase intention of the customer towards NPCP, in which we try to answer the following questions. How much of this positive perception for NPCP translates into an intention to purchase? What are the barriers to purchasing NPCP despite having a fairly positive perception for the same? What factors hold more value when it comes to making the purchase decision? Apart from studying the perception and purchase intention, we have also tried understanding post purchase behaviour, tendency and motivations to recommend NPCP and who are the people to whom these consumers recommend the product.