The Willingness of Omani Consumers to Buy Domestic versus Imported Products

The aim of this paper is to research Omani consumer behavior, specifically consumers’ willingness to buy domestic products by examining the influence of consumers’ ethnocentrism, conspicuous consumption, and susceptibility to interpersonal influence on domestic product purchases. The study has developed a conceptual model based on previous studies related to consumer behavior and combines the above three factors in one investigation. The research can be considered to be one of the first studies to combine these factors in the context of Omani consumer behavior. The research has used several methods to analyze the data. It starts with descriptive analysis (quantitative method). Moreover, reliability analysis is used to measure the validity of the scales. Finally, multiple regression analysis is applied to test the hypothesis. 377 respondents participated in this study by contributing in the questionnaire which was circulated to them online. The paper offers a new direction to the literature on the subject of consumer behavior, which establishes that consumers’ conspicuous consumption and their susceptibility to interpersonal influence have a positive influence on purchasing domestic products, in addition to ethnocentrism. Furthermore, the limitations and implications of this research have explored and recommendations for future research are made. Keywords: conspicuous consumption, ethnocentrism, interpersonal influence, domestic product, imported product