Effect Of Packaging Elements On Consumer Purchase Intention: Case Study On Cosmetic Products

In today's society, packaging is pervasive and essential. It surrounds, enhances and protects the goods we buy, from processing and manufacturing through handling and storage to the final consumer. Without packaging, materials handling would be a messy, inefficient and costly exercise and modern consumer marketing would be virtually impossible. (Lockhart H.E, 1989). The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of packaging elements of cosmetic products on consumer purchase intention. The study consider packaging color, wrapping design, background image, fontstyle, packaging material, printed information, innovation and brand of packaging as independent variable and consumer purchase intention as dependent variable. This empirical study was conducted using survey through a set of questionnaires with 5-point likert scale. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed to different individuals lived in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). Out of these 385 questionnaires were returned for data processing which gave the response rate of 96%. During data entry only 382 were used for statistical analysis by using SPSS micro soft excel. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, standard deviation, correlation and regression. The finding of the study shows that packaging color, wrapping design, background image, font style, packaging material and printed information of packaging elements significantly influence consumers' purchase intention of cosmetic products. Packaging innovation and brand on the package have no significant influence on consumers' purchase intention. Therefore, manufacturers of cosmetic products should give great attention to packaging elements that influences intention to buy the product to increase their market share and sales volume. Creative and technology based packaging for innovation and attractive and easily remember able packaging for brand may increase the influence of consumers to buy the product. So, packaging performs an important role in marketing communications, especially in the point of sale and could be treated as one of the most important factors influencing consumers' purchase intention