The Effect of Paperboard Packaging Impression on Purchase Intentions for Chocolate

Abstract

Boxed confectionery products are often purchased on the spot in everyday settings, and packaging serves as an important cue for product understanding and impression formation. However, it remains unclear how differences in the dimensions and proportions of simple rectangular boxes relate to impression formation and purchase intention. Therefore, this study examined the effects of box shape on impression formation and purchase intention for self-consumption, focusing on paper box packaging for chocolate products. Fifty-four men and women in their twenties were presented with shelf-display photographs of nine uniformly white samples and asked to rate seven impression words, based on the consumer behavior process, on a 7-point scale. Principal component analysis was applied to create impression spaces by gender and purchase frequency. The results showed that the evaluation process could be organized into stages corresponding to attention acquisition, meaning-making, emotional response, and context fit. Greater information search was associated with the use of a wider range of cues, making evaluations more likely to integrate meaning-making with emotional response. Greater purchase experience also made it easier to connect appearance characteristics with judgments of involvement attitudes, such as whether the product seemed everyday or special, making context-fit evaluations more prominent. Within the impression space, products were mainly segmented by volume and frontal surface area, and clusters shifted according to consumer attributes, even for identical boxes. Although no significant differences in final purchase intention were found across attributes, purchase intention tended to increase when evaluations related to eye-catching appeal were relatively lower.

Keywords: Packaging, Impression, Purchase Intention

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007746