The effect of country-of-origin and country image on customer's purchase intention for functional food and dietary supplement product in Vietnam

Abstract

Nowadays, Vietnamese people are changing their living habitat including nutrition and diet toward a healthier, neater and more convenient style, so the demand for functional food and dietary supplement increased remarkably. Catching up with this trend, many functional food and dietary product brands have been launched into Vietnam market , which makes consumers confuse to choose the product which is reliable and suitable with their health’s condition. The research of Shuang Yang (2014) showed that during customer’s purchase-decision making process, consumers would not only concern on product value, but also on product country-of-origin factors. However, a major concern is “What factors affecting customer purchase intention under time pressure in Vietnam functional food and dietary supplement market?” This research is conducted in order to identify what factors and assess the important level of each that influences customer intention to purchase functional food in Ho Chi Minh city. Besides, this study also compares the difference on purchase intention toward functional food among different demographic groups of age, income, educational level, occupation, working unit, shopping and especially to test whether time-limited pressure has impact on the purchase intention of customer and if is there any cognitive and affective components of country image has impact on purchase decision making or not. Furthermore, the study also discuss about the relationship between individual country-of-origin factors (including belief, consumer animosity, attitude) as well as social country-of-origin factors (including social prestige, social animosity and social norm) and purchase intention. Quantitative research method was applied in this study. 141 reliable responses were collected and analyzed with Smart PLS software. The result showed that perceived quality, brand loyalty and brand awareness have a positive relationship with purchase intention while brand association doesn’t. Although there are some limitations, this study is proposed with some practical implications and recommendations in order for manufacturers and companies to increase sales of functional food and dietary supplement products.