Impact of Brands' Ethical Factors on Customer Purchasing Decisions

Today, corporate executives need to understand the needs and wants of customers more than ever before to avoid customer orientation toward competitors, so that they can better meet their needs and build long-term relationships with them. One of the factors that can affect customers' perceptions of the brand is ethical factors. Therefore, the present study was formed with the aim of investigating the effect of observing ethical factors by brands in customer purchasing decisions.                 

The present study is applied and is in the category of qualitative research. The statistical population of the present study included key decision makers to purchase steel ingots, including experts, business executives and CEOs of the companies purchasing the product, which is estimated at about 30 companies, 19 of which were selected by targeted sampling. The data collection tool was an interview, and finally the Dimtel technique was used to determine the type of factor communication and the DANP process was used to prioritize the factors.

The results showed that the criterion of economic factors of purchasing with weight of 0.2208 was the first rank, the criterion of specific factors of seller with weight of 1998/0 was the second rank, and the criterion of communication factors with weight of 1952 was the third rank, the criterion of specific factors of product with weight of 1923. 0.4 is the fourth rank and finally the criterion of the factors of purchasing conditions with the weight of 0.199 is the fifth rank.

Observance of ethical values ​​by brands, including activists in the field of steel industry sales, affects customer purchasing decisions and key ethical criteria such as responsibility, fame and moral competence of senior managers and experience and satisfaction with previous purchases are most effective.