Product’s Attribute and Consumer Perception in Purchasing Decision: the Case of Young Adult’s Yoghurt Consumption

This research aims to examine the correlation between the attributes and consumer preference for yoghurt. This survey research uses a purposive sampling technique with the criteria age 15-24 years and experiencing to consume yoghurt. Data collection uses an interview approach with a questionnaire as an instrument. A total 257 young adult were selected for this study. The results revealed that consumer perception on yogurt attributes were in "high" categorized with taste, texture, product information, and bottle packaged were preferred to be chosen. Pearson’s R correlation analysis found that all attributes indicate a perfect positive linear relationship with consumer purchasing decisions on yogurt. The attribute that considers the respondents the most is product's information, and the correlation between the attributes and consumer's purchase intention is strongly positive. Thus, market potential and intention to consume yogurt through increasing the value of product attributes need to be assessed.


Introduction
Milk contains protein, calcium, and vitamins which are good for the growth and development of children to teenagers.However, currently the benefits of consuming milk cannot be felt by people with lactose intolerance.In fact, lactose intolerance suffered by some of the world's population is one of the causes of the declining demand for dairy products (Capcanari et al., 2021).Lactose intolerance is a condition in which the body is unable to digest lactose due to low levels of lactase enzyme activity in the body (Oak and Jha, 2019).Lactose is a sugar found in milk and dairy products as an important source of energy for the body and is also involved in the absorption of important minerals, such as calcium or magnesium (Katoch et al., 2021).However, the US National Institute of Health states that 65% of the world's population experiences a decrease in the ability to break down lactose after childhood (Katoch et al., 2021).In cases of lactose intolerance, doctors recommend consuming alternative sources of calcium and vitamin D, both from animals and plants.In addition, lactose-free milk can also be done.However, this advice carries its own risks (Capcanari et al., 2021), such as increasing the risk of bone fractures, osteoporosis, and other health effects.
Yoghurt is a dairy product with high nutritional value because it contains calcium, zinc, B vitamins, probiotics, a good source of protein, and can be supplemented with vitamin D and other probiotics that are beneficial for health (El-Abbadi et al., 2014).Currently, the demand for yogurt has increased along with the increasing human awareness of the importance of functional food products.According to Drug and Food Control Agency (BPOM) Regulation No. 30/2018, the daily consumption of fermented milk including yoghurt among Indonesians is 155 grams/person.Although this figure is much smaller than the consumption of consumption of yoghurt in other countries, but this figure is predicted to increase every year.Data from the Ministry of Industry (2020) shows that the number of yoghurt imports from 2012 to 2016 has increased by 225.98%.This means that it goes hand in hand with the increasing need for Indonesian people to consume yoghurt.These phenomena are in line with the recently healthy lifestyle trend which are consumers aware with high nutritional value and has medicinal properties and benefits for the body towards yogurt consumption.
Consumer decisions in purchasing yogurt are influenced by consumer knowledge of the product attribute.Consumers' demographics, packaging brand, and knowledge of nutrition and health-related issues all have a significant impact on their food preferences and likes (Muchiri et al., 2020).Primyastanto (2014) states that intrinsic element attributes are everything related to product properties, and extrinsic attributes are everything obtained by external aspects.According to Rasyid (2019), intrinsic attributes may consist of nutritional content, texture, delicacy, taste, aroma, color, and shape, and extrinsic attributes may consist of design, brand, label, and price, pollution to the environment, cleanliness, and packaging.The variety of product attributes that appear on the product raises consumer preferences.
Young adult consumers are sometimes referred to as the "archetypal global segment," and they are at the forefront of globalization and acculturation (Rašković et al., 2020).Consumer preferences can be obtained from observing consumer behavior, one of which is by observing prices and the number of goods to be purchased.With observations made by consumers, it is possible that consumer preferences for yogurt purchased will also be different (Semaoen and Kiptiyah, 2011).

Materials and Methods
A total 257 respondents for this study were selected, with 15 to 24 years old's teenager.Respondents chosen by purposive sampling method with criteria: (a) age 15-24 years; and (2) experiencing to consume yoghurt.The number of respondents used is based on Alwi (2015) who explains that for research with descriptive methods, sample sizes greater than 30 and smaller than 500 are suitable for most research, in addition to multivariate research, the sample size should be several times (preferably 10 times or more) of the number of variables used in the study.
Teenagers are chosen in this study because they able to decide what they want to choose.The target age in this study is 15 to 24 years old because that age has entered the high school level (or equivalent) and is able to decide for themselves which products to buy.Making decisions may increase with age while older adults make important decisions (Worthy et al., 2011).

Attributes and each level of attribute preparation
The attributes and each level of attribute that were used in this study was customized with the object of this study, which is Yogurt.There were 6 levels with 2 -3 levels in every attribute, and all the attributes and levels were combined by fractional factorial design to find the best combination even there were lots of interaction needed (3 or more interactions) (Antony, 2014).The combinations that are used in this study were followed in Table 1.

Questionnaire's preparation and distribution
All attributes and each level of attribute's combinations were prepared in a questionnaire, combined with several sentences to complete the perception section.Respondent's information also followed in a questionnaire to be fulfilled, consists of age, gender, domicile city, last education, occupation, also the income.Then, the questionnaire was distributed by Google Form to make it easier when it shared to others.

Statistical analysis
Perception analysis.This analysis is used to see the respondents' perceptions in their Yogurt's purchase decision.Six attributes were used in this perception analysis, such as taste, texture, product's information, volume, package, and price.There were 2 until 4 sentences in each category, all answers were categorized into 4 categories to find out what category that represents their perception.The categories that are used for the perception was as same as the level of Likert scales that were used.The scores of Likert scales were score 1 for "Strongly disagree", score 2 for "Disagree", score 3 for "Agree", and score 4 for "Strongly Agree".All answers were categorized in a perception categorize (Table 2).

Validity and reliability
Validity test was used to range the validity in a questionnaire (Ghozali, 2011), using a Pearson method.Reliability test is a test that is used to show up how far the instrument in this study could be believed as a test in collecting data.Riyanto and Hatmawan (2020) said that this reliability test improves a better quality of instruments.Based on the results, all categories were suitable to being used in this study (Table 3).

Results and Discussion
Characteristics of the sampled consumer group are shown in Table 4. Out of the 209 young adult consumers surveyed, 65.9% of the young adult consumer were female.Majority of young adult consumer have a primary education, which equates to a senior high school degree or equivalent.Most of young adult consumer on their level of education is dominated by those with a bachelor's degree or higher.Sample households with monthly incomes ranging from IDR 500,000 to IDR 2,000,000 dominated, with a 63% share.Kind of yoghurt that represents young adult consumer that they usually consume was yoghurt drink, also the frequency in drinking Yogurt based on result was once or twice in a month.Another result founded that most of young adult customer would like to cost about IDR 10,000 until IDR 15,000 to buy a yoghurt in every purchase in a week.Young adult customer had lots of reasons why they want to drink yoghurt.The most reason is yoghurt bring beneficiary for human health.They were looking for the benefits that they will get when they drink yogurt.The benefits in drinking yogurt based on Syainah et al. (2014) are to reduce the amount of cholesterol, also this product could be consumed by a lactose intolerant person.
The consumers' perception in their buying decision of yogurt showed that most of all categories that were in "High" perception, except product's information category in a "Very High" perception as the average score was 88.6% (Table 5).The attributes and its level that represents the young adult customer was a tasted yogurt with thick texture, a complete product's information appeared, in a bottle with 200 ml volume, and cost under IDR 10,000 (Table 5).
Each attribute created importance value represents the kind of attribute that influences consumers to buy yogurt.Based on the result of the study, it could be seen, the most considered attributes in buying yogurt are the product information and the correlation between the attributes with the buyer's decision was positively strong (Table 6).
The combination of attributes and the most selected of its level by all young adult customer were analyzed by the utilities value indicator.The result shows that each attribute and its level have different utilities values.The results of the accumulation of the value of the utilities of 257 young adult customer showed a combination of the most selected attributes.The results showed the taste attribute, young adult customer prefer additional flavors compared to plain with a value of 0.931.The utility value in the texture attribute shows that the respondents molded the thick texture compared to not thick with a value of 0.300.The utilities value in the packaging attribute indicate that the young adult customer is more preferred bottled packaging compared to the cup and box.The value of the utilities at the cup level, bottles and consecutive boxes is -0.206; 0.210; and -0.004, with affordable prices (below than IDR 10.000).
The results of the correlation test indicated that the relationship between the value of the utilities with consumer preferences has a positive value correlation.Based on these two results, both through Pearson's R and Kendall know, these two results have a positive and high value.These results indicate that the attributes used in this research are suitable and can be considered by young adult customer in the decision to purchase yogurt.
Based on the study results, the consumer highest characteristic is female, aged 19 to 22, not working, the last education is a high school or equivalent, coming from the outside of Yogyakarta Province, and most of the consumer's income or allowance is below IDR 500,000 a month.According to BKKBN (2019), the result shows that adolescent female consumers impact yogurt consumption levels.Li and Dando (2019) stated that there are more females than male consumers because of their purpose.Female tends to keep their diet healthy or to get the ideal body weight.Most of the consumers are students (240 people) and unemployed (7 people).Therefore, most of them are not working, the last education is a high school or equivalent, and their income or allowance is below IDR 500,000 a month.The consumers are from inside and outside of Yogyakarta Province.This fact shows that yoghurt marketing in Indonesia has been widespread and affordable throughout the region.The most consumed yogurt type is Yogurt drink (70.43%), followed by stirred Yogurt, set Yogurt, and frozen Yogurt.It corresponds with Everlin and Yosephine (2018), Yogurt drink's type is one of the most consumed yogurts by the consumer.The highest respondent's yogurt consumption level's frequencies are once to twice a month.It means that yogurt can be typical for respondents, although the highest percentage in consumption rate is only once to twice a month, with spent on it only IDR10,000 to IDR 15,000 per week.The most common reason that respondents choose to consume yogurt is for the healthy purpose (69%), followed by other reasons (18%), daily habits (8%), and lifestyle (5%).Another reason that the respondents explained are the excellent taste, just trying, used as a salad mixture, and trying new variations.Syainah et al. (2014) stated that yogurt is known to have several benefits like it can soothe the digestive tract, regulate cholesterol levels, and lactose intolerant sufferers can consume it.
Consumers have their perception regarding the yogurt's attributes.According to the study, product information attributes have a "Very High" perception, and the other attributes in this study have a "high" perception.A previous study mentioned that the attributes of taste, texture, volume, and price are categorized as "important" (Alijosiene and Gudonaviciene, 2014) for consumers when buying yogurt.Packaging attribute on a product is one of the consumer's considerations on buying food product (Schuch et al., 2019), supported with the various types of packaging.
According to Everlin and Yosephine (2018), there are cup packaging, bottle, and box packaging on yogurt.Product information on a product, including yogurt, is also considered essential because the consumers also pay attention to the product's information before buying it (Kobayashi and Benassi, 2015).
According to the data using conjoint analysis, it could be seen that most chosen attribute combination and level is yogurt with flavor enhancer, thick texture, has complete product information, has 200 ml volume, using a bottle as the packaging, and priced below Rp10,000.00.The result of the combination is obtained from the value of utilities gathered.This result can be attributed to respondent's allowance along with respondents' expenditures on yogurt.Allowance still becomes one factor contributing to the food consumption level, especially dairy products in Indonesia (Haryadi, 2017), thus allowing the influence of allowance towards yogurt's consumption level.Other results are the most considered attributes which determine respondent' behavior on buying yogurt are product information (26,972), followed by flavor attributes (26,746), texture attributes (14,619), price attributes (12,135), volume attributes (10,893), and packaging attributes (8,634).The result is gathered from the importance value data.It shows that the respondents pay attention to the completeness of the content of a product's information.The previous study shows that product information is categorized as very important.As the attributes used are essential attributes and considered by respondents, it was also found that the correlation value between the attributes of yogurt and the decision to purchase yogurt is 0.996.A correlation test is in the range of -1 to 1 (David and Djamaris, 2018), and correlation value with the result of 0.996 is categorized into a very strong category because it is between 0.8 to 1 (Puspitasari and Febrianti, 2018).

Conclusions
This study indicates that the most chosen attribute combination and level of attribute are yoghurt with flavor enhancer, viscous texture, complete product information, 200 ml volume, using a bottle as the packaging, and priced below IDR 10,000.00.Those most chosen attribute combinations and levels are following the highest consumer's income under IDR 500.000,00 a month.The attributes in yogurt products that consumers most consider in the behavior of purchasing yogurt are the product information attribute, as well as the correlation between the attributes used should be positive and very strong so that the consumers pay attention and consider the attributes of taste, texture, product information, volume, packaging, and price in the behavior of purchasing yoghurt.Furthermore, we think that it is important to assess the relationship between consumer perceptions in purchasing decisions and levels of yogurt consumption in order to assess the impact of consumer perceptions.

Table 2 .
Perception category scales

Table 1 .
Attributes and each level of attribute result negative sentence; ** result correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); * result correlation is significant at the level 0.05 level (2-tailed). a

Table 4 .
Characteristics of sampled respondents