Examining the Effect of Religious Opinions of Family and Close Friends on Purchasing Behavior: Comparisons of Five Indian Cities

This study examines how intimate social contacts’ opinions affect the selection of new religious products. Questionnaire surveys consisting of choice experiments were conducted in five Indian cities for Muslims and non-Muslims in 2020. Multinomial logit and random parameter logit models were applied, and the former was used for the analysis. Four hypotheses were presented: “opinions of intimate people are influential in purchasing religious new products” was rejected, and the associated increase of willingness-to-pay (WTP) was almost 0; “the proportion of a certain religious group in the total city population has some impact on WTP of this religion’s products” was supported; “the WTP is affected by the existence of religious logos on the package” was supported, and the associated increase of WTP was Rs. 17.28; “the proportion of a certain religious group in the total city population has some impact on how much consumers depend on intimate people’s opinions” was supported.