@DHAKA UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT
Volume 16, No. 1, January 2024 – December 2025
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.57240/DUJM.V16N1A5
PP. 115-134, ISSN: 2221-2523
Drivers of Electronic Cigarettes Purchase Decision: A Study on the
Youth of Dhaka City.
Muhammad Intisar Alam1
Received on 10th Nov 2024, Accepted on 15th Mar 2025, Published on
Abstract: This research tries to identify the causes associated with the purchase decision of electronic cigarettes. A structured survey questionnaire was developed through the survey tool, Google Forms and data were obtained from a convenience sample of 388 respondents living in various locations of Dhaka city through the Facebook. To evaluate the research hypothesis, multiple linear regression was employed. The results obtained show that among the seven predictors harm perception, peer influence, enjoyment, curiosity and cost mostly affect the adoption of e-cigarettes. And, two other predictors aid in smoking cessation and flavor were calculated to be affecting insignificantly. In case of managerial implications, there should be some well-structured approaches includingcommunity outreach programs in order to aware people on enjoyment and harm perception by the marketers, while the emphasis must shift to peer influence in terms of the policymaker’s youth-focused interventions. Additionally, it is demonstrated that any pedagogic campaign for facilitating the factual information regarding e-cigarette could be a significant approach to shape youths’ purchase decision. Finally, limitations, future research directions and conclusions are discussed in the study.
Keywords: Adoption,Electronic Cigarettes, Harm Perceptions, Peer Influence.
Introduction
Over the years’ people got used to adopting e-cigarettes to quit smoking, which is a common phenomenon among the youth who are health conscious (Al-Hamdani et al., 2019). Since the e-cigarette was branded as reducing the tendency to smoke, it is visible why people use electronic cigarettes; Individuals soon started using it as an alternative to cigarettes (Al Hamdani et al., 2019). As awareness of the dangers of smoking cigarettes increased, people trieddifferent ways to quit smoking; such as people tried to chewing gums, which built the field for a product that helps in the reduction of health-related risks but at the same time giving them the pleasure similar to cigarettes (Hammond et al., 2019). Electronic
1Associate Professor, Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka