Factors Affecting Attitude and Purchase Intention toward Gray Market Goods

Gray marketing is the importation and distribution of genuine products without the permission of the authorized distributors and manufacturers. The objective of the study is to reveal which personal (price consciousness, price-quality inferences, risk averseness, ethical judgment, consumer innovativeness, and involvement) and social (informative and normative susceptibility) factors affect consumers’ attitude toward gray market goods and intention. In addition, a comparative study (Turkey vs. the USA) was applied to find out whether the effects of these personal and social factors differ across countries. The model was tested through multi-group structural equation modeling. The results indicated that price consciousness, risk averseness, price-quality interference, and ethical judgment of the Turkish consumers affect their attitudes toward gray market goods. It can be stated that only the ethical judgment of gray market activities affects the US consumers’ attitude toward gray market goods. In addition, the effect of ethical judgment on attitude is stronger for the US consumers than the Turkish consumers. Furthermore, attitude has a positive effect on intention both in Turkey and in the USA. This study provides valuable information to the gray marketing literature.