Effect of E-Word of Mouth on Brand Equity and Intention to Purchase: A Study on Green Products in the Retail Sector

Abstract

In the race of sustainable development of the society, the marketers are forced to offer products with green attributes and environmentally friendly. But the sales of green products are not as much good as it should be because of high cost and lack of people trust. The e-word of mouth has direct effect on the consumer trust and so on the brand equity. The purpose of the current paper is to investigate the impact of e- word of mouth on the dimensions of brand equity- Brand Awareness., Brand Loyalty, Brand Perceived Quality and Brand Associations for the green products in the retail sector. Further, the study examined the impact of these determinants of brand equity on intention to purchase green products. The data has been collected through 383 customers and the conceptual model has been analysed using AMOS. The findings of the study proved that there is significant impact of positive e-word of mouth on overall brand equity and there is not any significant impact of negative e-word of mouth on brand equity of green products in the retail sector of India. The implications of the study provide the better understanding of the effect of E-word of mouth on each of the dimension of brand equity in retail industry regarding green products.