The Effect of Packaging Attributes on Consumer Buying Decision Behavior in Major Commercial Cities in Ethiopia

Abstract

Due to increasing self-service and changing consumers’ lifestyle, the interest in package as a tool of sales promotion and stimulator of impulsive buying behavior is growing increasingly. The objective of this survey was to examine the effect of packaging attributes on consumer buying decision behavior. A total of 384 questionnaires were distributed to standard supermarkets in Addis Ababa and other major cities in Ethiopia. Only 369 questionnaires were returned at the end of the data collection process, which gave the response rate of 96 per cent. However, during the data cleaning only 362 were usable and used for the subsequent statistical analysis. Data collected were analyzed using correlation and regression. Innovation has the strongest effect on cereal food purchase decision (0.392) followed by printed information (0.193), background image (0.168) and font size (0.168). However, there were no significant relationships between packaging color (-0.054) and packaging materials (0.016) in the purchase decision of the cereal packaged food. Ethiopian consumers do not give weight to packaging color and the quality of the packaging material. The findings of this survey will be used to make recommendations to marketers to enhance their level of insight about consumers buying decisions. However, there were no significant relationships between packaging color and packaging materials in the purchase decision of the cereal packaged food.