Social media has become popular in both business and research as many studies have explored the impact of this medium on the purchase behavior of consumers but surprisingly not in the domain of counterfeiting. Social media has become a significant part of today's lifestyle and it has created new channels for brand manufacturers and consumers to communicate. The present study tries to assess the impact of social media determinants on counterfeit purchase intention. The study explored three factors of social media namely social media platform, user-generated content, and social media word of mouth. Further, the study checks for the mediation effect of consumer attitude between social media determinants and purchase intention. The data for the present study were collected from three metropolitan cities of India namely Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. The PLS-SEM was used on 406 respondents for further analysis and validation. The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between social media platforms, user-generated content, and purchase intention. However, an insignificant relationship was found between social media word of mouth and purchase intention. Further, the study suggested that attitude mediates the relationship between social media determinants and the purchase intention of consumers towards the purchase of counterfeit products in India.
The expansion of the online market is expected to change the purchasing environment. The purpose of this study is to examine the difference in the moderating effect of each characteristic on perceived quality and purchase intention according to the group according to product involvement and purchaser age. The first step is to identify the characteristics of online information sources and social media platforms through a literature review. Next, when perceived quality affects purchase intention, we verify the moderating effect according to the characteristics of online information sources and social media platforms. The moderating effect is verified at the stage by dividing it into a group according to product involvement and a group according to age. The following results were confirmed throughout the study: First, perceived quality significantly affects purchase intention. Second, in the relationship between perceived quality and purchase intention, the influence of the moderating effect is different depending on the high-involvement product and the low-involvement product. Third, it was confirmed that there was a difference in the moderating effect of online information sources and social media platforms in the relationship between perceived quality and purchase intention according to age. This study intends to increase consumers' purchase intentions by identifying specific age groups and product groups of involvement and establishing strategies suitable for the characteristics of online information sources and social media platforms.
The concept of „Sustainability‟ has become as major concern and it used by consumers and corporations to convey the concept of taking care of the environment. Environmental concern has led to sustainable consumption in a variety of product categories, such as electricity, textiles, apparel, food, and grocery products (Chan, 2001; Harrison, Newholm, & Shaw, 2005; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006a, 2006b). Interest of the negative environmental impacts are rapidly increasing in present fashion business and consumer behavior has become a rising concern of the consumption and fashion supply chain to apply sustainable consumption (Birtwistle & Moore, 2007; Fineman, 2001). The environmental and social concern recognized in fashion industry from 1990‟s. However, the complexity of conceptual definition of sustainability and ecologically responsible consumer generates different and mistaken perception to consumer. In addition, in fashion industry, the terms of „eco-fashion‟, „environmentally friendly fashion‟,„green fashion‟, „ethical fashion‟, and „sustainable fashion‟ are frequently used interchangeably to describe the same concept. These interchangeable terminology is leading to confusion of the readers by the non-unified terminology (Choi et al., 2012). Also, consumers seem to have narrow scope and little understanding of sustainable fashion. In general, consumers focuses on environmental aspect not the wide-range of complexity of environment, social, and economical concern (Cervellon, Hjerth, Ricard, & Carey, 2010). The growing number of fashion brands are leveraging on green branding initiatives. Green marketing is increasing rapidly in corporate aspects and for a consumer perspective, global consumers are recognizing a personal accountability to take responsibility for social and environmental issues. Despite the fact many of individuals‟ willingness to purchase green products has increased in the last few years, however, there is limited studies suggest that purchase of green or sustainable products. Consumer research on sustainable fashion has mainly focused on consumer behaviors towards sustainable fashion products (SFPs); however, relevant studies that examined the whole process of the predicting proenvironmental behavior cross nationally value and the eWOM are still scarce. The purposes of research model are 1) to identify the determinants of eWOM intention on consumers' purchase intentions, 2) to examine the information adoption process as precursors of purchase intention of sustainable fashion, and 3) to testify different message types effects to information adoption process.