How country of manufacturing and sweatshop free information affects online apparel consumers' perceived quality, value and purchase intention

Abstract

Online consumers are not able to assess the physical product in the prepurchase process. This poses a problem for the consumers, and further affects their purchase behavior. The popularity of sustainability and transparency may provide an opportunity to lessen this kind of uncertainty. The literature review suggests that the country of manufacture and sweatshop free information, as two extrinsic information cues, may has the potential to affect a consumer's perceived quality, perceived value and purchase intention in online shopping context. This study aims to determine how the information regarding country of manufacture and sweatshop free influences consumers' perception of quality, value and patronage intention regarding different price apparel products in the online shopping context. For this study, a 2*2*2 (country of manufacture * sweatshop free * price) experiment was designed and each participant was exposed to one of eight profiles in random order. OLS regression results indicate that country of manufacture don't relate to any of the perceived quality, perceived value and purchase intention. To the contrary, price has a statistical significant effect on all the dependent variables. The sweatshop free label is positively related to the perceived quality and purchase intention, but doesn't affect perceived value. The interaction effect (C*P*S) affects consumers' perceived quality only. Implications, limitations, and scope of further research are also discussed.