PRODUCT PACKAGING DESIGN AS THE BASIS OF PRODUCT PURCHASE DECISION

Market homogenization leads to fierce competition in the tea market. In recent years, with the rise of “green health” and the deep-rooted concept of “innovation”. Tea packaging design innovation has become a hot spot for research in the tea industry. The continuous upgrading of tea market demand has shown vigorous vitality and energy. The study aims to examine the research on the influence of Chinese tea packaging design on product purchasing decisions and analyze its importance and influencing factors. Further, strengthen the sustainable development of tea packaging design in Yanhu District, Shanxi Province, China. Theoretical analysis was conducted of tea cognitive attitudes, tea culture, tea packaging design, and purchase decision behavior. The final online questionnaire was distributed to 321 respondents in the Yanhu District. Empirical research results indicate that all three dimensions of tea packaging design factors positively influence, but the degree of influence varies. Tea products can be enhanced through packaging design to influence purchasing decisions. Ultimately, it can explore the packaging effect of tea products and add value to the connotation of tea products and meet the multi-level demand of consumers for tea products.


INTRODUCTION
Tea packaging design is a soft power publicity medium that tea companies have and is the key to invisible communication between tea enterprise products and consumer favor.
When consumers buy tea in the market, they are more willing to choose those tea products that are easier for them to trust. In addition to the influence of tea brands, excellent tea packaging design is also needed as an auxiliary means to influence consumers' purchasing decisions. Packaging is the first thing in contact with the consumer to stimulate the consumer's desire to buy, which is of great help in promoting sales. These functions are increasingly crucial to the business.
The experiential economy is increasingly embedded in our production live, and product packaging and design invariably influence the consumer experience. According to China Tea Marketing Association statistics, by continuously improving the green Ecoltechnology of China's tea plantations, the total sales of traditional tea products in China are expected to exceed RMB 300 billion in 2021, an increase of 3%-4% from 2020. Reflecting the future trend of price stability and considerable sales volume, the Chinese tea market is a thriving and sustainable environment (CTMA, 2021). However, the impact of COVID-19 will result in a significant decline in exports from the Chinese tea industry. It is expected that with the intensification of the epidemic worldwide, China's tea exports will maintain a significant reduction in volume in the short term. Tea is rich in tea polyphenols, tea pigments, other health benefits, and minerals (Khan & Mukhtar, 2007). Therefore, often drink tea to help human health. In recent years, tea has become consumers' first choice for "green, high quality, healthy" consumption due to its high-quality product attributes, wide variety, and exquisite packaging. China's different topography and climate also make the varieties of tea different and, therefore, can meet the needs of different consumer groups.
In the face of the current abundant resource advantages of Chinese tea and the epidemic's impact, attracting consumers to buy tea products has become the primary demand of tea producers, processors, and sellers. As a result, people have realized the importance of tea packaging to attract consumers and enhance tea sales. The tea packaging design serves as a bridge of information communication between tea products and consumers. Consumers mainly obtain the basic information about tea, perceive the emotional output of the packaging, and communicate culture through tea packaging to

Tea Cognition
China is the first producer and consumer of tea, with a long history of tea drinking, and tea has long been another way of embodiment of life. China's tea culture originates from a long time and is so profound that it has become one of the carriers to show the charm of Chinese traditional culture (Patil, Bachute, & Kotecha, 2021). Tea not only embodies a long-standing culture but also reflects a mood and renders an atmosphere, such as the beauty of the "tea ceremony" culture. There is a great interest in the healthiness of tea, which has increased its popularity of tea. Tea has been considered to have medicinal value in its long history. Tea contains antioxidant theophylline. Tea has many beneficial health properties, such as antioxidant, neuroprotective, and hypolipidemic benefits (Chacko, Thambi, Kuttan, & Nishigaki, 2010). Foreign perceptions of tea focus on its drinking characteristics, tea is primarily a casual drink, sipped when people are relaxed.

Tea Packaging Design
In the era of big data, internet intelligence, epidemic, and other factors influence the diversified development of the tea market in the domestic and international exchanges and communication. Consumers' demand for tea packaging design will also undergo demand changes in the direction of sustainable diversity. The most basic protection function of packaging cannot meet the requirements for tea purchase. Therefore, enterprises gradually focus on attracting consumers and analyzing the form, material, color, and other factors of product packaging design to assist consumers' emotional needs to enhance product competitiveness and improve product sales (López, Murillo, & Gónzalez, 2021). Product packaging mainly uses color labels and text to influence consumer purchase decisions, and the product packaging is the most compelling factor for consumers. In-depth to a cultural to brand impact level (C. C. Shen, 2014). From the perspective of green design, there should be environmental awareness in the selection of tea packaging materials and the use of materials (Lin & GUO, 2020).

Consumer Purchase Decisions
In recent years, the direction of consumer research has expanded from theory to the analysis of consumer preferences. In terms of product attributes, it was found through the analysis that the product's packaging design and product type significantly affect the Product Packaging Design ….. 520 customer's awareness of the brand's products (Fenko, Lotterman, & Galetzka, 2016).
Regarding consumer characteristics, some researchers have pointed out that the products people buy contain certain cultural connotations (Dewobroto, 2022). The products they buy reflect consumers' cultural attributes and norms, significantly influencing their perceptions and purchase behaviors (Ogden, Ogden, & Schau, 2004).
In terms of consumer characteristics, when consumers buy products that value greenness, greenness stimulates the desire to buy. To verify the influence of green and emotional value on consumer purchase and repurchase behavior (Ariffin, Yusof, Putit, & Shah, 2016). Some scholars have also used experimental field methods, combined with indepth interviews, and used logistic regression analysis of sample and interview data to verify the effects of gender and age on behavioral changes (Sahay, Sharma, & Mehta, 2012).
Previous researchers focus more on brand effect, regionality, culture, emotion, healthiness, packaging effect, and so on, which are more disorganized and without planning dimensions. This study will extract the vital tea packaging design influence on consumers' purchasing decisions and divide the dimensions to demonstrate the strength of the relationship more clearly between the two.

Consumer Purchase Decision Theory
Consumers are faced with a wide range of choices when faced with the many packaged teas on the market. So much so that they may not fully understand the complete information of the pre-purchased product and have difficulty accurately judging the quality of the tea from an objective point of view. First, consumers often perceive tea products through external packaging cues such as brand information, origin, and design style, affecting their desire to purchase. Secondly, consumers' attention and preference for tea products also affect their evaluation of the quality of packaged tea. Consumers' purchase decision display constantly considers their consumer needs and other factors. The purchase decision can be made in a "Stimulus-Organism-Response" process (S-O-R). It has been widely used in business studies and other fields to explore the interaction between different stimuli and consumers (Zhu, Li, Wang, He, & Tian, 2020). Product Packaging Design ….. 521

RESEARCH METHOD
The study used a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches. For the quantitative approach, primary data were gathered from the general consumers in Yanhu District who were taken as the research subjects selected using the Yamane formula to derive a margin of error of 5% (confidence level at 95%) for the target population of this study. In all, 321 usable questionnaires were obtained for the survey. The sample size met the requirements of a sample size between 100-400 and an optimal ratio of 10:1 between the sample size and the total number of questionnaire questions as recommended in the SEM model and EFA analysis research (Worthington & Whittaker, 2006). The sample was selected mainly by random sampling using the Questionnaire Star software, and Yanhu District was selected as the survey area. So, this study's statistical methods were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS software for data testing.
Additional statistical analysis was used using Exploratory Factor Analysis to analyze the correspondence between factors and potential dimensions. Using exploratory factor analysis, we can extract the common factor among variables and explain all factor information by summarizing the main dimensions. Categories can be extracted from the many repetitive information, and dimensions can be classified for streamlining information.
The analysis in this study was conducted in an exploratory mode to determine the extent to which purchase decisions were associated with tea packaging design factors (Cudeck, 2000). This study is based on Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM), reflecting the flexibility of factor analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis will be used to improve the rigor and scientific validity of this study.
To enhance the analysis, the study combines a large amount of literature at home and abroad. It collates the relevant research on tea cognition, tea packaging design, and consumer purchase decision in recent years to explore the cross-sectional relationship in the existing literature while closely following the current research trends (Snyder, 2019).

Pretest/Exploratory Factor Analysis
The reliability scores of 0.853 in the preliminary study were all higher than 0.8, thus indicating an authentic and reliable questionnaire and high quality of reliability (162 valid

Descriptive Statistical Analysis
Most tea consumers in Yanhu District are male by gender respondents, with 162.0 and 50.47% total. It means there are more male tea consumers in Yanhu District, and the gender ratio is relatively even. The age distribution of tea consumers in Yanhu District, most of the sample is "17-28 years old", with a proportion of 39.88%. In addition, the proportion of the 29-50 years old sample is 38.94%. This indicates that the age of consumers is a bit younger. It means that the mass market tea consumption is becoming increasingly evident in the trend of youthfulness, pulling a solid relationship with consumers, strengthening the traditional culture of tea, and maintaining health. More than 50% of the tea consumers in Yanhu District are "Undergraduate" in education. This indicates that the education level of consumers is high, which means that the level of education and literacy of consumers may also impact tea consumption.
More than 30% of the tea-drinking samples in Yanhu District are "Packaging design", with 110 respondents. This means that consumers still care about the packaging design of tea, and it is the main reason for buying tea. More than anything else, the packaging design will attract consumers to purchase product decisions. The price range of tea in Yanhu District is "140-200 yuan/kg" in most of the samples, and the proportion is 35.51%. The price of tea is moderate. It means that 114 respondents still prefer to buy tea products with high tea prices. This means that the high or low price of tea may affect the frequency of tea purchase, and the quality of tea packaging, etc. 20.87% of the sample chose "Public functionary", with 67 respondents. It means that the workplace and environment may impact the demand for tea. The reliability test analysis was carried out by importing the data of 321 final questionnaires into SPSS, as Table 1 shows: the Cronbach alpha was 0.929, which is better than 0.9 for each design dimension, indicating high confidence quality of data.
Furthermore, based on the "CITC value", all the data are above 0.4, reflecting better correlations among the analyzed items. Meanwhile, the reliability level is also well.
Therefore, the final 321 questionnaires had great overall reliability test results and passed the test requirements.   Product Packaging Design ….. 527

Figure 1 SEM Model Coefficient Analysis Results
Source: Researchers'calculation based on the questionnaire using AMOS The survey found that consumers in Yanhu District did not particularly care about the text design features on the outer packaging of tea in the study and the portability of the packaging design function of tea products. The packaging form is more inclined to creative tea packaging design products. The factors of the three dimensions of sustainability, experience, and purchase decision of tea packaging design positively impact the product purchase decision. However, there are differences in the degree of impact. Based on the level of the p-value of each factor hypothesis showed significance (significant p-value of 0.000***<0.01), while Standardized coefficients(β) are more significant than 0.4. Therefore, all hypotheses H1-H10 are valid and reasonable. It confirmed the objectives and questions of this study that tea packaging design positively impacts product purchase decisions.

CONCLUSION
The study explores to answer the research objectives and questions, tea packaging design influences product purchasing decisions. Previous studies have analyzed the importance of tea packaging design and consumer buying behavior. This study takes consumers respondents (N=321) in Yanhu District, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province as the research scope and explores the stimulating influence of different tea packaging design influencing factors on product purchasing decisions around the spotlight of tea packaging design and consumers' purchasing decisions. Regarding influence size, the product purchase decision has the most significant influence on the apparent shape of tea packaging whether the final consumer finally buys this product or not, but consumers' first vision will all view the appearance shape of the tea product first, followed by other influencing factors such as the Chinese traditional cultural elements of the tea product, uniqueness, graphic elements, and color.
Consistent with previous studies, the high or low price of tea may affect the frequency of tea consumption, the quality of tea packaging, etc. Meanwhile, the creative tea packaging design with expressive power can attract customers to consume and purchase, and the independent innovation of tea packaging design forms a new development trend.
The sustainability of tea packaging design is essential to the current product purchase decision process. Whether it is the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture, the environmental recyclability of the materials used, the concern for the health benefits of tea to the human body, or the details of specific product information reflected on the tea packaging design, all of which will directly affect the final purchase decision result. This indicates that the education, culture, and work environment may influence consumer purchases. Next are factors such as the brand, origin, and price of the tea. Consumers are now more receptive to fashionable and creative tea packaging design with the changing times. Tea product packaging focuses on user habits, such as easy to open and store. The unpacking method adds interest and reflects the uniqueness of each tea product to create a good user experience. Tea packaging design can build the brand image of tea enterprises and promote the development and communication of the tea culture industry. All these positively influence the product purchase decision.
Overall, the study results are consistent with the existing theoretical support. There is a trend toward youthfulness. Therefore, it is confirmed that tea packaging design is a fundamental consideration for product purchase decisions. Thus, it promotes the development needs and trends of the tea market, economy, culture, society, and environment at all levels.