Consumer Purchase Intention for Skin-care Products

Hsin-Fan Chen
Department of Marketing and Logistics Management, Chaoyang University of Technology
Yen-Hsi Lee
Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Chaoyang University of Technology
Yu-Cheng Tu
Department of Marketing and Logistics Management, Chaoyang University of Technology
Yi-Fang Chao
Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Chaoyang University of Technology

Abstract
Skin-care product was one of the major products in cosmetic markets, so the marketing
opportunity is huge. However, most of previous researches generally discussed anything
but skin-care products. In order to increase the sales volume and make marketing
strategies to increase consumers’ purchase intention, manufacturers have to understand
consumer’s buying decision-making process. Perceived value is considered to be a key
point to influence consumers’ willingness to purchase; therefore, the study adopted the
PERVAL scale, developed by Sweeney and Soutar (2001), to investigate the influences of
perceived value on consumer’s purchase intention toward skin-care product. Six hundred
thirty two undergraduate students were recruited to participate in and fill out the
questionnaire. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the effect
of perceived value on purchase intention. The finding revealed that all four dimensions of
perceived value have significant impacts on consumers’ purchase intentions. This study
suggests that manufacturers can develop effective marketing strategies by emphasizing
price, quality of product, fragrances, packages, and designs of product…etc. to enhance
consumers’ perceived value to increase their purchase intentions.

Keywords: Perceived value, Purchase intention, Skin-care product

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 INTRODUCTION
Most people use cosmetics every day. Cosmetics have become one of the necessities in
daily life. Guthrie, Kim and Jung (2008) noted that people used cosmetic products to improve
their appearance and tell their own style or artistic preferences to other people. People
believed that after using cosmetics, they will become prettier and have more confidence when
they contact with other people. As a result, the market will develop fast as soon as people
want to purchase cosmetic products. Liang (2010) mentioned that the global sales value will
increase from 75 billion US dollars in 2008 to 86 billion US dollars in 2013. In Taiwan the
production value and sales value of cosmetic industry in 2010 increased separately more
18.31% and 10.95% than these in 2009 (Taiwan Industry Economics Services, 2010). It shows
now in Taiwan cosmetics become one of the major products in the market of daily supplies.
Kumar, Massis and Dumonceaux (2006) described “the cosmetic industry is a very lucrative,
innovative fast paced industry (p.286)”; therefore, the potential of markets is huge in the
future.
In order to achieve consumers’ different needs, plenty of different functional products
appear. Different categories in cosmetics industry include lotion, cosmetic of hair, cosmetic of
eye, cream and so forth. These categories are based on their function to various kinds of
product in each country. According to Liang’s (2010) report, among these various products,
skin-care products were the most popular products and became the main stream in the global
cosmetic industry. Additionally, the Asia Pacific Zone was also the biggest market (about 40%
in the global skin-care product market). The skin-care product could be expected to be a huge
and potential market in Taiwan. However, previous studies generally talked about cosmetics,
but the skin-care product is one of the major parts in cosmetics markets. Skin-care product’s
function is to clean, massage, and moisturize skin, the products in this study include lotion,
moisturizer, cream, facial scrub, mask, and essence/serum.
Skin-care products have been widely used, and consumer’s perceived value of the
product directly affect their purchase intention. The perceived value contained different
factors. Understanding which factors will affect purchase intention the most is necessary
because it may provide skin-care product manufacturers with directions to adjust their
products. However, only few studies examined the influences of perceived value on
consumer’s purchase intention of skin-care products, so this study adopted Sweeney and
Soutar’s (2001) four dimensions of perceived value: functional value (price/value for money),
functional value (performance/quality), emotional value, and social value to investigate the
impacts of perceived value on consumers’ purchase intention toward skin-care products.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Purchase intention and perceived value
Consumers who have higher purchase motivation and desires of a product may increase
their purchase intention. Purchase intention was also called the willingness to buy. It means
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the possibility of a consumer who wants to purchase a product (Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal,
1991). It also plays an important role in consumer’s buying decision-making process. In a
shopping situation, people who desire a product or have some special motivation could
increase their intentions to choose a product and make a purchasing decision.
Consumers consider some aspects when they are choosing a skin-care product, such as
price, quality, performance, or their preferences. These aspects will affect their perceptions of
the product and then they decide whether to buy it. Consumer’s overall perception of a
product is called perceived value. Scholars have defined perceived value. Dodds and Monroe
(1985) defined that perceived value is a tradeoff between the quality perception of the product
and the time and money consumer needed to spend. The combination of consumer’s
perception of product quality and the time and money she/he need to spend to get the product
is perceived value. Zeithaml (1988) stated that “perceived value is the consumer’s overall
assessment of the utility of a product based on perceptions of what is received and what is
given (p.3).” when a consumer is purchasing a product, he/she will evaluate what they will
obtain and sacrifice. So the perceived value could influence consumers’ perceptions of a
skin-care product and their purchase intentions. Chen and Dubinsky (2003) claimed that
perceived value was considered to be a strong predictor of consumers’ willingness to buy. It
means consumer’s perceived value truly influences purchase intention and perceived value
can also help manufacturers adjust their product to increase consumer’s purchase intention.
Several approaches investigated the effects of consumer’s perceived value on tangible/
intangible product or service quality. For instance, Babin and Attaway (2000) investigated the
effects of store atmosphere on customer purchase behavior and Sanchez, Callarisa, Rodriguez,
and Moliner (2006) explored the impacts of perceived value on purchasing tourism product.
Skin-care product is a kind of tangible product. One of those approaches which is used to
investigate consumer’s perceived value of tangible product is the PERVAL scale, developed
by Sweeney and Soutar (2001). The scale divided perceived value into four dimensions:
functional value (price/value for money), functional value (performance/quality), emotional
value, and social value. The scale included the factors which may affect consumer’s intention
when they are purchasing a product. This study therefore applies the PERVAL scale to
investigate the impacts of consumer’s perceived value on purchase intention toward skin-care
products.

Functional value (price/value for money)

Most of people think that price is the top priority when they are choosing a product. The
price of product is considered to be one of the major factors which will affect consumer
purchase intention. Some consumers focus on whether the product is worth paying its price or
not. If they think the price is reasonable or the product is good and worth purchasing, it would
increase their purchase intention and they would like to purchase the same product next time.
Thus, the study proposed the hypothesis:
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Hypothesis 1. Skin-care products perceived functional value (price/value for money)
influences purchase intention.
Functional value (performance/quality)
It reflected the performance of skin-care products after consumers use it, good and
consistent quality of skin-care product. The product is used on human skins so the quality
must be good and consistent. Consumers use the product in order to get some effects from the
product; therefore a skin-care product with consistent quality and good performance will
increase consumer’s purchasing desires and intentions. Accordingly, the study made the
hypothesis that:
Hypothesis 2. Skin-care products perceived functional value (performance/ quality)
influences purchase intention.

Emotional value
People, after using skin-care product, may feel enjoyment, relaxation and pleasure. If
consumers like the scent of the product, it may make them feel happy or pleasant and the
massage on their skin could help them relax. Nowadays, people are under pressure and
anxious, if using the skin-care product can help them feel relaxed, enjoyable and pleasant,
they would like to purchase more skin-care products. Therefore, the study made the following
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3. Skin-care products perceived emotional value influences purchase intention.

Social value
People believed that the skin-care product can improve their appearances and they will
become prettier and have more confidence. Consequently, they may leave good impression on
other people. The skin-care product is a kind of necessity in daily life, so people may discuss
their skin-care product in social situation. While a person is talking about opinion or
evaluation of his/her skin-care product, other people agree with him/her, he/she may feel
acceptable and enhance his/her self-concept by using the product and sharing the opinion after
usage. It also can make people feel that they belong to a specific social class. Hence, the study
formed the hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4. Skin-care products perceived social value influences purchase intention.

METHODOLOGY
The study investigated the impacts of perceived value on consumers’ purchase intention
toward skin-care products. The influences of two functional values (both price/value for
money and performance/ quality), emotional value, and social value on consumers’
decision-making processes were also explored. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was
employed to examine the effect of perceived value on purchase intention. According to the
purpose above, the study presents research structure as following:
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 Functional value
(price/value for money)
H1
Functional value
H2
(performance/quality)
Purchase Intention
H3
Emotional value
H4

Social value

Figure 1. Research Frame

Purposive sampling was used in this study and participants were six hundred thirty two
(214 male and 418 female) undergraduate students in different colleges. The participants have
to fill out the questionnaires according to their experiences of purchasing and using skin-care
products. Those question items were originally written in English, and they were translated
into Chinese. The questionnaire was made up of two sections. The first section was about
items of perceived value. The items were measured on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging
from “1” (extremely disagree) to “7” (extremely agree). The second section collected
information of the respondents’ basic demographics. Participants needed approximately five
to ten minutes to finish the survey. The surveyor provides necessary assistance to explain the
questions but not to affect participants’ opinion about the questions.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

The statistical analysis procedures employed in this study was descriptive statistics,
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), and Cronbach’s (α) Alpha coefficient. Table 1 presented
the information of participants. In total, 632 undergraduate students participated (66% female:
33.9% male) in the study. Participant without a job are more than participants with a job. Most
participants’ income are under NT$10,000 dollars. Approximately 90% participants will
spend at least NT$1,000 dollars to buy skin-care products every year, so it also can tell that
skin-care product is one of the necessities in daily life.

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Table 1 Demographics profile of the sample
Characteristic Number of participants Percentage (%)
Male 214 33.9
Gender
Female 418 66.1
Yes 203 32.1
Job
No 429 67.9
Under NT 5,000 236 37.3
Income NT 5,001~10,000 307 48.6
(allowance+ NT 10,001~15,000 56 8.9
salary) NT 15,001~20,000 15 2.4
Over NT 20,001 17 2.7
Under NT 1,000 233 36.9
NT 1,001~2,000 176 27.8
NT 2,001~3,000 97 15.3
Money of NT 3,001~4,000 50 7.9
spending NT 4,001~5,000 24 3.8
skin-care NT 5,001~6,000 17 2.7
products NT 6,001~7,000 7 1.1
NT 7,001~8,000 7 1.1
NT 8,001~9,000 8 1.3
NT 9,001~10,000 5 0.8
Over NT 10,001 7 1.1

Model Specification
Amos.20 was used to analyze the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) of the model in
this study. Figure 2 showed the Standardized Estimates. The results revealed the RMSEA
=.075. Doll, Xia, and Torkzadeh (1994) mentioned that AGFI and GFI scores ranging
from .80 to .89 is in a good fit, so the AGFI=.854 and GFI=.885 scores in this study is
acceptable. Schumacker and Lomax (2004) thought that X2/df score under 5 is in a good fit,
so the X2/df= 4.527 in this study is acceptable. Hence, the model was acceptable in this study
(Table 2). The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient for the five dimensions ranged between 0.73 and
0.89 (see the Table 3) and for the overall dimensions was 0.91 which shows the scale was
reliable.

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Figure 2. Standardized Estimates of AMOS

Table 2 Recommended values of model goodness fitting

Recommended values
2 2
X /df 1< X /df<3 (good) X2/df<5 (acceptable)
GFI >0.90 >0.8 (acceptable)
AGFI >0.90 >0.8 (acceptable)
RMSEA <0.05 (good) <0.08 (acceptable)

Table3 Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for five dimensions

Dimensions and items Cronbach’s (α)
Functional value (price/value for money) .842
Functional value (performance/quality) .731
Emotional value .884
Social value .899
Purchase intention .874
Overall .912

Hypotheses Testing
Table 4 revealed that the direct path (functional value (price/value for money) purchase
Intention) is significant, because the regression coefficient is 0.209 (t=4.962, p<0.001).
Therefore, Hypothesis 1 is supported. It means consumer’s price perception of skin-care
product affect their purchase intention. The direct path (functional value (performance/quality)
purchase Intention) showed that the regression coefficient is 0.159 (t=3.251, p<0.001). It is
also significant, so the hypothesis 2 is supported. It represented that quality of skin-care
product is very important for consumer and quality or performance of the product affect

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consumer’s purchase intention. The direct path (emotional value purchase intention) is
significant. The regression coefficient is 0.474 (t=9.077, p<0.001), hence, the hypothesis 3 is
supported. The result indicated that consumers’ feeling before purchasing skin-care product or
after using the product influence their purchase intention to buy the product. According to the
regression coefficient which is 0.106 (t=2.865, p<0.01), the hypothesis 4 (social value
purchase intention) is also supported. People believed that their social lives improve after
using skin-care product, so social value affects their purchase intention, too. The finding
revealed that all the four dimensions of perceived value have impacts on consumer’s purchase
intention toward skin-care products.

Table 4 Standardized Direct, Indirect and Total effect on Constructs

Hypothesis Path Direct Effect (C.R.) Indirect Effect Total Effect
Hypothesis1 Functional value 0.209*** (4.962) .000 0.209***
(price/value for money)
Purchase Intention
Hypothesis2 Functional value 0.159*** (3.251) .000 0.159***
(Performance/ quality)
Purchase Intention
Hypothesis3 Emotional value 0.474*** (9.077) .000 0.474***
Purchase Intention
Hypothesis4 Social value Purchase 0.106** (2.865) .000 0.106**
Intention
**p<0.01, ***p<0.001

ANOVA analysis
This study used ANOVA analysis to investigate the impacts of perceived value on
different gender, participants with different income, and the different totals of participant
spend skin-care products per year. As reflected in Table 5, functional value (price/value for
money), and emotional value had significant differences on gender. The results showed that
females are usually influenced by price of skin-care products. They considers about prices of
skin-care products is reasonable or the price of product is worth buying before purchasing it.
By contrast, males consider less about the price. Females tended to put more focus on their
feeling of the products than males.1 They choose a skin-care product which they love or they
feel good and relaxed after using.
In this present study mean of income was used to divide the participants with different
income.2 The result showed that different income had significant effects on functional value

1
In this study, the total samples of male were 214, and female were 418.
2
The Mean was 6918, and the SD was 5224. The split samples with high income over NT$5,001 dollars were 395, and with
low income under NT$5,000 dollars were 236.

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(performance/quality), emotional value and social value. People with high incomes noticed
the product quality and the performance of the product after using it more than people with
low incomes. People with high income think that the emotional perception is important when
they are choosing or after using the product. They would like to choose the product which can
bring them good emotional perceptions. They also care about their impressions on other
people compared with people with low income. The money that participants annually spend
on skin-care products was also divided into two groups by the mean3: more annual
expenditure group and less annual expenditure group. The result revealed that people with
different expenditures of skin-care product had significant effects on all four dimensions.
People who annually spend money above the mean on skin-care products would consider all
four dimensions, including reasonable price, good performance/quality, received good
emotional and social perceptions when they are making the purchase decision, more than
people who annually spend money below the mean.

Table 5 ANOVA analysis of demographics data and perceived value

Perceived value Functional value Functional value Emotional value Social value
Demographics (price/value for money) (performance/quality)
Gender 23.837*** .392 27.795*** .007
Income 2.774 3.934* 6.211* 7.120**
Spend skin-care 6.488* 10.386*** 49.975*** 20.569***
product per year
The value is F statistic; ***p<0 .001, **p<0.01, *p<0.05

Conclusion and limitation

Skin-care product is one of the major products in cosmetic industry and the market is
still increasing. This study adopted the PERVAL scale which was developed by Sweeney and
Soutar (2001) to investigate how the skin-care product perceived value affect consumers’
purchase intentions or not. The results showed that the consumer’s perceived value positively
influences purchase intention. In this study, four dimensions of perceived value have
significant impacts on consumer’s purchase intention toward skin-care products. People
consider the price, quality of the product, their feelings and social lives improvement when
they are purchasing skin-care products. Once a consumer is satisfied with and received good
perceptions from the product, such as reasonable product price, good product quality, they
feel well after using it, or can make a good impression on other people, and then their
purchase intentions will increase. Perceived value plays an important role on consumer
decision making. Therefore, if manufacturers can understand consumer’s perceived value of

3
The Mean was 2055, and the SD was 2083. The split samples with annually more expenditure of skin-care product over
NT$ 2,001 were 222, and with annually less expenditure of skin-care product under NT$ 2,000 were 409.

9
skin-care product in advance, it will help them adjust their products or marketing strategies
and then the sales will increase.
Additionally, the study found out that females perceptions of some aspects are different
from these of males, such as price of product, and emotion. Females care more about
reasonable price of products and economical products. The reason is that females are always
the persons who purchase skin-care products, so they know what price is reasonable for a
product. As a result, manufacturers can consider females opinions of economical products or
reasonably price when they are pricing a skin-care product. Females also tend to choose the
product which they like. It means that female feelings of the product and their preferences
will affect their intentions. For example; they felt relaxed and pleasant after using it.
Therefore, manufactures can focus on the product functions, such effects, fragrances, or
packages and consumer’s different preferences to increase purchase possibilities. Besides,
more and more males use skin-care products, so manufacturers can also produce various
skin-care products for males to achieve their needs and increase their purchase intentions.
The functional value (performance/quality), emotional value, and social value had
significant effects on people with higher income because they thought that good quality is
necessary for a skin-care product and the performance can truly improve their appearance.
They also would like to purchase the product which can help them relax and make them feel
happy. People with high income may have more opportunities to contact with people, hence
they believed that using skin-care product can enhance their appearance and will be helpful to
make a good impression on others.
All the dimensions had significant impacts on people with different expenditures of
skin-care product. People who spend more expenditure on skin-care products more cared
about the perceived value of skin-care product. They put focus on the reasonable price, good
performance/quality, their feelings or preference of the product, and the social perception of
after using or purchasing the product. Retailers can add these people to their VIP list and
adopt both new and original VIPs’ opinions to adjust their marketing strategies. For this group,
retailers can vary the product positioning of higher price products, such as premium skin-care
products, and then they may think the product is worth purchasing. The manufactures also
should maintain the good product quality, and create various products to attract consumer’s
attention. If a skin-care product includes all these aspects, it will increase consumer’s
purchase intentions immediately. It suggests that manufacturers and retailers can consider that
different consumer groups’ needs to adjust product positioning, pricing setting or to develop
different marketing strategies and product functions, such as product design, different effects
(whiten or moisturize), and fragrance to increase their purchase possibilities.
The market is huge but competitive. The findings may give manufacturers a direction to
understand consumers’ opinion and perception of skin-care products, and then make
marketing strategies to enhance consumers’ purchase intention and sales volumes.
There are some limitations in this study. First, the study only chose undergraduate as
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participants, but different age or group may have other opinions, so future study can choose
other different group to investigate. Second, products of different categories can be the target
product in future study. Finally, not only perceived value but also other aspects have impacts
on purchase intention. More variables can be added in future study to investigate their effects
on purchase intention.

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