THE EFFECT OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY TO CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE INTENTION

• Main Author: Shafirly Gardesi, Andhira
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/68193
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The beauty industry certainly has a promising future due to its significant growth over the past few decades and it is now one of the highest-grossing sectors in the creative industry. The industry is divided into five major business segments, including skincare, color cosmetics (such as makeup), haircare, fragrances, and personal care. Although there have been long-standing issues regarding sustainability since the beginning of its history, recently the market showed high competition amongst brands due to the fact that these days consumers can opt from one brand to another, as opposed to the reality of a few years before when they were only able to buy from beauty conglomerates brands. According to some research, there has been a transformation in beauty consumers' preferences in which they demand more transparency and responsibility from brands towards social issues as well as environmental matters. However, high consumerism among individuals is still in existence which leads to the wonder of how truthful it is for consumers to practice sustainability in purchasing beauty products. Following already existing research on sustainability and habitual behavior relating to purchase intention of beauty products, an online survey was conducted to prove how beauty brands’ sustainable practices affect and predict consumers’ purchase intentions in Indonesia and it was spread through social media and word-of-mouth. There was a total of 27 questions which was divided into four sections: demographic, habitual behavior, CSR-related, and purchase intention. The questions, starting from the habitual behavior section, were in the form of statements and respondents were required to decide to what extent they agree or disagree with a specific statement using the five-point Likert scale. The survey managed to attract 273 final respondents who fulfilled the criteria of this research’s population which is Indonesian beauty consumers who are routinely using beauty products on their daily basis. The data obtained from the results were then processed and analyzed using the SPSS software. Five analyses were executed: moderated regression analysis, reliability analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. It was revealed that beauty brands’ sustainable behavior does have effects and helps predict consumers’ purchase intention and that Indonesian beauty consumers prefer to buy sustainable beauty products, although it was not moderated by the consumers' habitual behavior and their income level within the targeted sample. However, after testing this research’s model efficacy, it was only able to predict 21.1% of Indonesian beauty consumers’ purchase intention (the predictor variables (income, habitual behavior, ethics, and beauty knowledge) only affect the dependent variable (purchase intention) by less than 25%).