THE INFLUENCE OF WEBSITE QUALITY ON COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS ORGANIC FOOD

Milan Kocic, Srdjan Sapic and Katarina Sofronijevic

University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Economics, Kragujevac, The Republic of Serbia

Using websites for commercial purposes has been noticeable in numerous areas in recent years, including the organic food market, among others. The era of digitalization has implied that an increasing number of consumers form their views on organic food based on information that is marketed via websites, instead of going to traditional stores. In accordance with that, the aim of the paper is to examine whether the quality of a website, measured by its usability, design and the quality of information, affects consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes towards organic products. In this paper, exploratory factor analysis is carried out along with multiple regression analysis. The research results indicate that, in the organic food sector, it is very important to have a website which is both usable and visually appealing, simultaneously containing quality and updated information, which all can greatly influence the formation of users’ attitudes towards organic food, their attitudes being made of the rational emotional dimensions as well. The contribution of this research study is particularly significant bearing in mind the fact that attitudes towards organic food are mostly examined in a traditional environment, not so much in an online environment.

Keywords: website, organic food, cognitive attitudes, affective attitudes

JEL Classification: M31