Consumers’ Purchase Intention Of Suboptimal Food From The Perspective Of Perceived Risk And Face

Food waste has a serious negative impact on the economy,society and the environment,and the rejection of suboptimal food is an important cause of food waste.However,the factors influencing consumers’ suboptimal food purchasing behaviour are currently uncertain.The purpose of this study is to identify the factors influencing consumers’ purchase behaviour of suboptimal food in the Chinese situation and to conduct an empirical analysis of the important factors in order to provide a reference for the sale of suboptimal food.Based on a semi-structured interview outline,this study conducts in-depth interviews with 25 consumers through snowball sampling and uses the ground theory method to find out the factors influencing consumers’ purchase of suboptimal food;a7-point Likert scale questionnaire is administered to 756 consumers to investigate the effects of different types of suboptimal food products and consumers’ personal characteristics on perceived risk,and to compare and analyze the differences between the five dimensions of perceived risk and the mechanism of influence on the purchase intention of suboptimal food products;a questionnaire survey of 696 consumers is conducted by designing different shopping situations and using a randomized intervention experiment to elucidate the mechanisms of the role of suboptimal types,face situations,face propensities,and emotions on purchase intentions.The results of the ground theory study show that the factors influencing the shopping situation on consumers’ suboptimal food purchasing behaviour can be grouped into the following nine categories: promotion,hygienic condition and food safety grades,service scenario,people,positions,emotions,perceived risk,face concept,and perceived convenience.The nine categories of influencing factors can be summarised into two areas: environmental and psychological.Consumers are stimulated by their shopping environment,leading to changes in their personal psychology,which in turn affects their suboptimal food purchasing behaviour.The results of the perceived risk study show that consumers’ perceived risk of suboptimal food comes from health risk,social risk and quality risk rather than financial risk and psychological risk.Consumers perceive significantly higher health risks for the defective suboptimal food category than for the other three suboptimal food categories,and significantly higher social risks and quality risks for the expired suboptimal food category than for the other three suboptimal food categories.Information about consumers’ personal characteristics all have a significant impact on perceived risk.Perceived quality risk,health risk and social risk all significantly and negatively affect consumers’ purchase intention;however,the effects of financial and psychological risks on purchase intentions are not significant.The results of the face intervention study show that the face situation significantly influences purchase intention and that emotions mediate the relationship between the face situation and purchase intention.Compared to face normal,face gain positively affects purchase intentions and face loss negatively affects purchase intentions.The face propensity and the face situation work together to influence purchase intention;in the face gain situation,the purchase intention of consumers who want the face propensity is significantly higher than that of consumers who are afraid of losing face,but in the face loss situation,there is no significant difference between consumers’ purchase intentions with the two face propensities.This study finds some unique influencing factors and significant mechanisms,summarizes and refines the comprehensive environment-psychology-behavior model,systematically analyzes the mechanism of the influence of perceived risk and face on purchase intention,and scientifically proposes the marketing strategy for suboptimal food.The results of the study provide an important theoretical basis for subsequent large-scale quantitative studies,and have important practical management implications for stores to effectively promote the sales of suboptimal food,and are of reference value to retailers wishing to enter the Chinese or East Asian markets.