An Exploratory Study of Factors on Intention-to-Buy Dietary Supplement

Riding on megatrends of aging population, increasing work stress and growing health awareness, dietary supplement market has been growing over time. To capture the involved business opportunities, additional studies on marketing of health-related products including dietary supplements (DS) are called for. Anchored in the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study has three objectives. It aimed to (1) examine the direct effect of three previously identified predictors in shaping consumer’ attitude towards DS consisting of: social norm, behavioral control, and informational influence; (2) ascertain the potential mediating effect of consumers’ attitude towards DS over the relationship between each of these predictors and consumers’ intention to buy DS; and (3) discover the possible moderating effect of consumer resources (in terms of years of DS consumption, and amount of monthly DS spending) in strengthening/weakening the consumer attitude-intention to buy pathway. The current research model has been tested by a sample of 240 regular consumers taking DS. The resultant findings revealed that consumers’ attitude towards DS not only emerged as the most salient factor affecting the intention-to-buy DS, but also intervened significantly as it partially mediated the relationship between the consumers’ intention-to-buy DS and their perceptions over social norm and behavioral control pertaining to DS. In addition, the current findings provided support to the powerful moderating effect of the years of DS consumption in strengthening the impact of perceived behavioral control on consumer attitude towards DS, and on intention to buy DS. In light of the present results, managerial and research implications were drawn.