Mapping Social Media Influence on Green Packaging Choices in Cosmetics: Measurement of Purchase Intention and Mediating Role of eWOM

Abstract The cosmetic industry strives to examine the necessity of advancing its business toward sustainable packaging efforts in cosmetics and becoming more ecologically friendly. However, existing research has not sufficiently examined how social media antecedents shape consumer intentions toward these initiatives. Thus, the purpose of this article is to investigate how social media, through green marketing communication, consumer trust, and consumer engagement influence consumers’ intentions to buy sustainable cosmetic packaging while also considering eWOM as a mediator. A conceptual framework based on social media variables with repeated indicators was designed. An online survey was used to collect data from 350 consumers from Haryana using convenience sampling. Data analysis was done using SPSS and SmartPLS-SEM. According to the findings, green marketing communication and consumer trust have a significant influence and consumer engagement has an insignificant impact on purchase intention toward green packaging in cosmetics. Results concluded that eWOM substantially mediates the relationship between social media variables and purchase intention of sustainable packaging in the beauty sector. By analyzing the importance-performance map analysis, this study identifies several important management implications for the cosmetics industry regarding sustainable packaging.