Investigating the effect of aesthetic aspect of packaging and its dimensions on purchase intention through packaging preference

Companies in the era of quality convergence of products are bound to differentiation. As a differentiating tool، Packaging can be a troubleshooter in this field. One of the ways of differentiation is to consider aesthetic aspect of packaging. According to this fact، current survey has studied the impact of aesthetic aspect of packaging on purchase intention of goods through packaging preference. A sample consisted of 384 customers of the big food stores in Shiraz is selected. To test the validity of researcher made questionnaire، two approaches including face and confirmatory factor analysis and to examine the reliability of questionnaire، alpha cronbach (88/4 percent) approach were used. Findings showed that packaging preference had mediated completely the relationship between the aesthetic aspect of packaging and purchase intention. Other findings indicated that informational aspect of packaging has moderated the relationship between the aesthetic aspect of packaging and purchase intention. On the other hand، some variables such as price، quality and brand of food products have moderated the relationship between packaging preference and purchase intention.