How Does the Country-of-Origin Influence Consumer Purchase Decisions? Evidences from Oman

Abstract

Country-of-origin is one of the important factors that play a significant role in consumer’s purchase decision. This study examines how the country-of-origin factors affect Omani consumers towards their purchasing process to choose domestic products or foreign products and how the country’s law affects the decision by using primary survey data collected from 400 Omani consumers from January to February 2020. The study found that the country of origin and consumerism both have a positive relationship with domestic products. However, the study revealed no significant moderation effects of countries laws in predicting foreign products' prestige. This indicates that the country rules and regulations do not affect the relationship between country of origin and foreign products' prestige on Omani consumers. Omani consumers are less likely to purchase their products for prestige, and they are not concern about it. They do not judge the quality of products according to the country of origin. The study discards the idea which called that the developed countries products were higher quality than developing countries. The study concludes that Omani consumers are concerned with the country of origin when purchasing domestic products. However, country rules and regulations do not influence the relationship between country of origin and domestic products.