THE ROLE OF HEALTH AWARENESS IN SHAPING CONSUMERS’ TRUST AND PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARD ONLINE ORGANIC FOOD: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN

Authors

  • Omar Sajid Faculty of Business and Finance, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4239-4000
  • Charles Ramendran SPR Faculty of Business and Finance, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
  • Abdulkarim M. Jamal Kanaan-Jebna Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18623/rvd.v23.n4.4700

Keywords:

Health Awareness, Online Organic Food, Consumer Trust, Purchase Intention, Digital Information

Abstract

The growth of online food stores has greatly influenced the consumer buying pattern especially in the organic food product market. The paper explores the connection between health awareness and the intention to buy organic food online with reference to trust and confidence in health-related information. The collected data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 100 consumers of Pakistan and analyzed using SPSS. The relationships between health awareness and trust in online organic food, confidence in digital information, and purchase intention were analyzed using descriptive statistics, normality tests, correlation analysis, multiple regression, and principal component analysis. The results indicate a strong statistically significant positive correlation between health awareness and online organic food purchase intention. The regression analysis proves the hypothesis that the effect of health-related perceptions, as a bloc, has a strong effect on purchase intention. Moreover, principal component analysis reveals a health-oriented factor that significantly influences the variance with a preponderance implying that health awareness, trust and intention are interrelated in the form of an integrated thinking system. The research is an addition to the existing body of knowledge on online food consumption because it reveals how health awareness is a key influencer of online organic food buying behavior.

References

Aertsens, J., Verbeke, W., Mondelaers, K., & Van Huylenbroeck, G. (2009).

Personal determinants of organic food consumption: A review. British Food Journal, 111(10), 1140–1167.

https://doi.org/10.1108/00070700910992961

Ajzen, I. (1991).

The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211.

https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T

Ajzen, I. (2006).

Icek Ajzen’s homepage. http://people.umass.edu/aizen/index.html

Alim, M. A., Emon, M. A., & Biswas, R. (2018).

SMEs’ wasted opportunity to enhance economic development of Bangladesh. Journal of the Institute of Bangladesh Studies, 41, 1–18.

Ashraf, M. A., Joarder, M. H., & Ratan, S. R. (2019).

Consumers’ anti-consumption behavior toward organic food purchase: An analysis using SEM. British Food Journal, 121(1), 104–122.

https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-02-2018-0072

Asif, M., Xuhui, W., Nasiri, A., & Ayyub, S. (2018).

Determinant factors influencing organic food purchase intention and the moderating role of awareness: A comparative analysis. Food Quality and Preference, 63, 144–150.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2017.08.006

Basha, M. B., Mason, C., Shamsudin, M. F., Hussain, H. I., & Salem, M. A. (2015).

Consumers’ attitude towards organic food. Procedia Economics and Finance, 31, 444–452.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(15)01246-3

Boobalan, K., & Nachimuthu, G. S. (2020).

Organic consumerism: A comparison between India and the USA. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 53, Article 101988.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101988

Cachero-Martínez, S. (2020).

Consumer behaviour towards organic products: The moderating role of environmental concern. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 13(1), 16.

https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm13010016

Cane, P. (2018).

Do food recalls have a greater effect on consumers’ trust when they involve healthy, organic and protected designation of origin foods, and if yes, why? Journal of Agronomy Technology and Engineering Management, 1(1), 99–109.

Chauke, D. X., & Duh, H. I. (2019).

Marketing and socio-psychological factors influencing organic food purchase and post-purchase outcomes. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 25(9), 896–920.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10454446.2019.1697980

Chin, W. W. (2009).

How to write up and report PLS analyses. In V. E. Vinzi, W. W. Chin, J. Henseler, & H. Wang (Eds.), Handbook of partial least squares (pp. 655–690). Springer.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32827-8_29

Chowdhury, S., Meero, A., Rahman, A. A., Islam, K. A., Zayed, N. M., & Hasan, K. B. (2021).

An empirical study on the factors affecting organic food purchasing behaviour in Bangladesh. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 20(4), 1–12.

Devi, K., Singh, G., Roy, S. K., & Cúg, J. (2023).

Determinants of organic food purchase intention: The moderating role of health consciousness. British Food Journal, 125(11), 4092–4122.

https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-03-2023-0220

Dimitri, C., & Dettmann, R. L. (2012).

Organic food consumers: What do we really know about them? British Food Journal, 114(8), 1157–1183.

https://doi.org/10.1108/00070701211252101

Doll, W. J., & Torkzadeh, G. (1988).

The measurement of end-user computing satisfaction. MIS Quarterly, 12(2), 259–274.

https://doi.org/10.2307/248851

Fishbein, M., Jaccard, J., Davidson, A. R., Ajzen, I., & Loken, B. (1980).

Predicting and understanding family planning behaviors. In I. Ajzen & M. Fishbein (Eds.), Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Prentice Hall.

Fleșeriu, C., Cosma, S. A., & Bocăneț, V. (2020).

Values and planned behaviour of the Romanian organic food consumer. Sustainability, 12(5), 1722.

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051722

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981).

Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50.

https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104

Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M., & Thiele, K. O. (2017).

Mirror, mirror on the wall: A comparative evaluation of composite-based SEM methods. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(5), 616–632.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0517-x

Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015).

A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based SEM. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8

Hobbs, J. E., & Goddard, E. (2015).

Consumers and trust. Food Policy, 52, 71–74.

Hoyle, R. H. (1995).

The structural equation modeling approach. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling (pp. 1–15). Sage.

Krystallis, A., & Chryssohoidis, G. (2005).

Consumers’ willingness to pay for organic food. British Food Journal, 107(5), 320–343.

Paul, J., & Rana, J. (2012).

Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(6), 412–422.

Rana, J., & Paul, J. (2017).

Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food: A review and research agenda. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 38, 157–165.

Shahid, K. (2022).

Purchase intention towards organic food during the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan. Journal of Rural and Social Development Studies.

Tandon, A., Dhir, A., Kaur, P., Kushwah, S., & Salo, J. (2020).

Why do people buy organic food? International Journal of Consumer Studies, 44(6), 678–690.

Yadav, R., & Pathak, G. S. (2017).

Determinants of consumers’ green purchase behavior. Ecological Economics, 134, 114–122.

Downloads

Published

2026-02-03

How to Cite

Sajid, O., SPR, C. R., & Kanaan-Jebna, A. M. J. (2026). THE ROLE OF HEALTH AWARENESS IN SHAPING CONSUMERS’ TRUST AND PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARD ONLINE ORGANIC FOOD: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN. Veredas Do Direito, 23, e234700. https://doi.org/10.18623/rvd.v23.n4.4700

Issue

Vol. 23 (2026): Veredas do Direito, v. 23, 2026

Section

Articles

License

I (we) submit this article which is original and unpublished, of my (our) own authorship, to the evaluation of the Veredas do Direito Journal, and agree that the related copyrights will become exclusive property of the Journal, being prohibited any partial or total copy in any other part or other printed or online communication vehicle dissociated from the Veredas do Direito Journal, without the necessary and prior authorization that should be requested in writing to Editor in Chief. I (we) also declare that there is no conflict of interest between the articles theme, the author (s) and enterprises, institutions or individuals.

I (we) recognize that the Veredas do Direito Journal is licensed under a CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE.

 

Licença Creative Commons Attribution 3.0