Factors that affect young consumers' purchase intention toward functional foods in Ho Chi Minh City
Abstract
This study aims to identify the important factors affecting young consumers’ purchase
intention toward functional foods in Ho Chi Minh City and provide marketing recommendations
which reflect the research findings and analysis. Based on the literature review, there are 5
variables (Subjective Norms, Health Consciousness, Humanlike Interaction, Perceived Risk and
Purchase Intention) in research model which was developed and used as the theoretical
framework for this research. According to the methodology, quantitative and qualitative methods
were applied; however, quantitative method plays an essential role. In particular, the
questionnaire of online version was designed by the Google Drive and shared on the Facebook to
collect responses of 50 respondents from 18-28 years old in Ho Chi Minh City. Also, the paper
survey of offline method was distributed to 270 respondents from 18-28 years old in Ho Chi
Minh City. The data gathered from the answered questionnaires would be analyzed by SPSS
software (version 16).
As a consequence, it is indicated that the young consumers’ purchase intention for
functional foods in Ho Chi Minh City is not considerably high, so the marketers need to put more
effort to motivate the youth to make more purchases. Besides, the tests showed that dependent
Purchase Intention (PI) variable is positively affected by Subjective Norm (SN), Health
Consciousness (HC), Humanlike Interaction (HI) variables and negatively impacted by
Perceived Risk (PR) variable. In general, the research findings may be helpful for manufacturers
and marketers in functional food industry in Vietnam.