The coffee charm: understanding the relationship between product design dimensions and Willingness to buy from Starbucks

Abstract

The growth of the hospitality industry calls for further understanding. The coffee shop sector is a large part of the hospitality industry in Indonesia, considering coffee consumption, exports, and interest. This study uses PLS-SEM to assess the relationship between product design dimensions in coffee shops and the Willingness to buy using Starbucks as a case. A purposive sampling method was utilized to gather respondents that is a customers of Starbucks, and 119 respondents’ data was used to test the hypotheses in this study. This study found that symbolic design significantly affects WOM (β=0.210, p=0.030) and Willingness to buy (β=0.359, p<0.001). Functional design significantly affects WOM (β=0.164, p=0.080) but not Willingness to buy. Lastly, WOM affects Willingness to buy with the largest effect size out of all the hypotheses (β=0.515, p<0.001). Coffee shops should consider the importance of product design and strategizes accordingly. Future research should consider expanding on this works with a consideration of this study’s limitation. Coffee shops should consider the importance of product design and strategizes accordingly. Focusing on symbolic design can be a strategy worth considering for coffee shops that emphasize brand and meaning as their value proposition. Future research should consider expanding on this works with a consideration of this study’s limitation.