Challenges and Factors Affecting Purchase Intention; A Global Perspective

Various factors affect the formation of people's purchase intention, yet no research has been found on reviewing consumer behavior and factors affecting purchase intention in Afghanistan by the researchers. Due to the increasing amount of importing goods and changing customers' behavior in Afghanistan, predicting and explaining consumer attitudes and behavioral intentions to buy foreign versus domestic products plays a critical role in designing marketing strategies for this emerging market. This research aimed to study the factors affecting the purchase intention of Iranian goods by customers in Herat, Afghanistan, and the conceptual framework of this paper could be a basis for future research in this field. It has also been attempted to simultaneously consider several variables affecting the purchase intention and examine a comprehensive conceptual model. The present study was a survey type, and a questionnaire was used to collect the research data. The research hypotheses were tested using path analysis methods, Anova, single sample t, and simple and multivariate regression. This research can be considered as the first research related to consumer behavior in Afghanistan. 

Keywords: Purchase Intention, Consumer Attitude, Demographic Factors, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavioral Control, Global Businesses 

The concept of marketing is the process of customer satisfaction. In other words, the business begins with the consumer and his needs, and the purpose of the business is to create a satisfied customer (Drucker, 1973).

Increasing travel and improving communications, such as Social Media and the Internet, has made the demands and preferences of the characteristics of a series of products worldwide. Openness to foreign markets introduces the consumers to products and services available throughout the world, given that they are increasingly exposed to products coming from different countries (Wong, Polonsky, & Garma, 2008).

On the other hand, consumer tendency in purchasing decisions varies in different circumstances due to affective factors. Marketers seek to understand which factors can affect consumers' attitudes toward foreign products (Wang & Chen, 2004). Consumer behavior analysis has become highly important due to increased consumer populations and a dramatic increase in multinational goods production. Other factors include increasing globalization and the complexity and diversity of taste and customers' attitudes in global markets. Several studies have also been conducted on factors affecting it.

In this study, the effect of the variables of consumer attitudes, subjective norms, and demographic factors are evaluated on purchase intention, which is an independent variable. The effect of three independent variables of brand image, the good's country-of-origin (COO), and beliefs in product attributes are examined on the consumer's attitude. This study's overall objective was to investigate the factors affecting Iranian goods' purchase intention by the people in Herat, Afghanistan. The present study's specific objectives are to investigate the effect of Iran's mental image on the Afghan consumers' attitude, study the effect of consumers' attitudes on Iranian goods' purchase intention, and the effect of demographic factors purchase intention of Iranian goods.

Statement of the problem: Afghanistan is a landlocked country in the south of Asia. Pakistan is to its east and south, and Iran is on its western border. It is the 42nd most populous country, home to approximately 32 million people. Afghanistan is among the least developed and poorest countries globally due to continuous wars by civil conflict and Russian invasion. However, in the last decade, following large amounts of remittances and foreign aid, especially from the United States of America, economic growth rose to 10 percent. The Afghan economy was gradually boosted by more than 50 billion dollars (Mohsen, Ramadani, & Dana, 2020). Afghanistan has witnessed widespread insecurities and wars in history.

These insecurities can be mentioned as the main obstacles to the lack of investments in the country's industrial sectors. As a result, the industrial sector in Afghanistan has suffered from exhaustion (Mallick, 2020). However, Afghanistan is currently moving toward achieving a bright and prosperous future in terms of economic growth and development aspects. World Bank data shows that 39 percent of the population still lives in poverty and is unemployed, whereas 400 000 new young Afghans enter the labor market every year. (Mohsen, Ramadani, & Dana, 2020).

Today, various European and Asian brands compete significantly in Afghanistan's markets with different services, appearances, and price levels, including $4 billion in food imports (Factbook, 2016). Therefore, Afghan consumers are faced with a wide choice when shopping. Considering the geographic situation and the cultural and historical commonalities between Iran and Afghanistan, Iran's cooperation in building trade in the region and the country is essential (Sadrania, 2020). The weakness of the industry in Afghanistan, due to the years of conflict on the one hand and the economic, political, and geographic location of Iran, on the other hand, has made Iran the best option for supplying imported goods to Afghanistan (Hassan-yari, 2017).

According to statistics, Afghanistan imported about $7.5 billion in 2016, among which Iran ranked second in Afghanistan's imports (Factbook, 2016). Therefore, importing goods from Iran to Afghanistan has an economic and political justification. This research seeks to provide a comprehensive model of the main factors affecting Iranian products' purchase intention by Afghan consumers by reviewing previous research and conducting field studies, so worldwide suppliers of goods can use this model to develop appropriate marketing strategies.

In this study, the research questions are as follows:

What factors affect the purchase intention of Iranian goods by Afghan consumers?

Which elements of influential factors are more important in buying Iranian goods?

There are significant backgrounds about the factors affecting the purchase intention, but most of these studies have investigated the impact of one or more factors on customer purchases (Ali & Abbass, 2020) (Azami, 2019) (Kalaivani & Sumathi, 2018). Several factors influence customer purchasing decisions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive model that includes the mentioned variables. However, there was no study on factors affecting the intention to purchase Iranian goods in Afghanistan; several studies provided relevant research tips or models to help this research. In other words, the primary data for designing the research framework provided the key concepts and required theories. According to the studies, other researchers obtained the following findings.

Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA): This theory was initially introduced in 1967 by Fishbein and Ajzen (Fishbein, 1967). The purpose of this theory is to predict and understand the motivating factors affecting individual behavior. The theory of reasoned action has arisen from the field of clinical psychology. From the nineteenth century, social psychologists have developed theories to illustrate how attitudes affect an individual's behavior. According to this theory, the determinant factor of a person's behavior is his intention to do or not to do a particular behavior according to the problems of constant concealment of a person's intention. The theory of reasoned action considers two dependent conceptual factors, which interact with each other, and each has a particular weight coefficient according to their relative importance to describe and express the individual's intention.

The development of Fishbein's theory presents this theory in 1975 by Fishbein and Ajzen. This theory states that the most crucial factor in the act by a person is the person's desire, which is influenced by two aspects of a person's attitude toward one's behavior and subjective norms (Maher & Mady, 2010).

Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB): according to the theory of reasoned action, each person's behavior is due to his intention, and intention is a function of attitude and subjective norms. Of course, if the behavior is not entirely under the control of an individual, even when his attitude and subjective norms heavily influence him, he may not do the appropriate behavior due to interference with the environment (Renzl, 2008). To overcome this problem, in 1991, Ajzen developed the theory of reasoned action by adding a third component called perceived behavioral control. He proposed the theory of planned behavior, which measures the influence of the three factors of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on the intention to perform a behavior (E.Rhodes, M.Macdonald, & A.McKay, 2006). Many studies have shown that the theory of planned behavior is more effective in predicting individual behavioral desires than similar theories (Hansen, et al., 2004)(Kang, Hahn,  & Fortin, 2006)(Wang M. ,  Chen, Chang, & Yang, 2007).

Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action (1967) and Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (1991) consider attitudes and subjective norms as motivational factors affecting the individual's intent. They realized that each person's behavior results from his intention, and intention is a function of the attitude and subjective norms. Furthermore, external and internal pressures on the individual's behavior are also perceived by behavioral control, and accordingly, they act in a particular manner. In this research, these factors and demographic factors are considered factors affecting the purchase intention.

The findings of the history of other factors and variables of the conceptual model are as follows. Findings from researches on demographic factors show that gender, age, academic background, and income level affect people's purchasing intentions (Sharma & Parmar, 2018) (Akhter, 2003); Factors such as demographic factors, subjective norms, brand image, and marketing strategies are essential indicators of different nations' buying habits (James, Hu, & Leonce, 2019) (Derakhshanian,  2014). Previous studies in subjective norms have concluded that subjective norms toward attitudes play a more critical role in predicting consumer behavioral intentions (Maher &  Mady, 2010). Subjective norms indicate how important people influence a customer, such as family members, friends, colleagues, etc. (Kim & Chung, 2011). It was also found that the variables of interpersonal norms, brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality, emotional value, and demographic factors could affect the intention to purchase foreign products (Dorbin, 2019). Subjective norms measure the impact of others on behavior. If social expectations mean people should do the mentioned behaviors, they will be more likely to behave (Alam & Sayuti, 2011). The influence of subjective norms and environment on ecological purchase intentions are also studied previously in middle eastern countries. The result shows a lack of customer tendency toward ecological products (Nejati, Salamzadeh, &  Salamzadeh, 2011).

According to the previous researchers, perceived behavioral control is the individual's perception of the ease and difficulty of behavior (Al-Zaqeba & AL-Rashdan, 2020) (Ellison,  2003)(Ellison, 2003). It shows the person's perception of the skills, resources, and opportunities needed to perform the behavior (Renzl, 2008). Perceived behavioral control refers to the ease or difficulty of behavior and the amount of control an individual has to achieve the mentioned behavior (Teo & Lee, 2010).

For Years the study of the country of origin's effect has been the focus of international marketing. The country of origin's image is an important external factor for product selection and profoundly impacts consumer attitudes and assessments (Harjanti, Novianto, & Sukatmadiredja, 2020) (Knight,  Seymour, Gaunt, & Baker, 2007). The country's mental image of producing the goods reflects the customer's general perception about the quality of that product and its people's quality and quantity (Häubl, 1996). If consumers see the country of origin as similar to their national and moral identity, they are more likely to buy it (Batra, Ramaswamy, Alden, Steenkamp, &  Ramachander, 2000) (Reardon,  Miller, Vida, & Kim, 2005). The country of origin's mental image as a psychological factor is vital, which affects the brand awareness and the perceived quality of the brand, and the perceived quality affects the brand equity (Saydan,  2013).

Diamantopoulos (2011) found a positive relationship between the country of origin and the brand image on purchasing foreign goods (Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, & Palihawadana, 2011). Li Guo (2011) research, demographic factors, consumer psychological factors, security factors, and privacy are the most critical factors affecting the purchase intention (Guo, 2011). A brand is a name, symbol, logo, signature, or combination that distinguishes a product or service of a manufacturer or retailer from the products, services, and provided offers, such as the value and dignity of competitors (Pars & Gulsel, 2011).

The brand creates a competitive advantage. The brand reflects the quality and is a commitment to the buyer, like specific features that encourage consumers to buy branded products or services (Waller, 2020). Consumers in all countries widely recognize the brand as an essential criterion in selecting and purchasing goods. Besides, designing and guaranteeing goods are also dominant elements in the brand name (Godey, et al., 2012). Brand image is compelling on brand equity  (Lee  & Back, 2010).

With increasing competition for new markets and customers, customer satisfaction has become one of the critical factors behind business success. Each organization tries to provide its customers with satisfaction by improving its products and services (Hua, Zhang, & Xu, 2011). Since each of the characteristics of products and services plays a different role in satisfying customers' needs, recognizing the factors affecting customer satisfaction is critical to succeeding in today's competitive world (Pham & Nguyen, 2020). Among various factors affecting purchasing behavior, quality-price and product characteristics are considered the most critical factors. The perceived necessity of the product and the consumer's nationalism affect imports, and attitude affects the purchase intention (Shahrokh, Haghighat, & Atoofi, 2014).

The attitude towards buying a product is defined as the individual's overall assessment of whether to accept that product (Brodowsky & Beverlee, 2006). Attitudes to marketers will not be vital if they do not affect the last step. The factors influencing the purchase intention are attitude, demographic factors, brand, and perception (Le & Doan, 2011). Other variables affect purchase intention like sustainable and ecological factors and social media's effect on customers buying behavior. Previous researches show that product manufacturing companies may adjust their marketing strategies to suit the unique characteristics of this Middle-Eastern society. In the future, other marketing strategies like social media of sustainable marketing strategies may come to use due to the increasing tendency of the customers to these areas. By innovating existing products and turning them into green ones and also developing social media marketing suits to middle eastern countries, companies can explore this market through sustainable and social growth (Nejati, Salamzadeh, &  Salamzadeh, 2011) (Palalic,  Ramadani, Gilani, Gerguri-Rashiti, & Dana, 2020) (Abbasi, Goh,  & Ariffin, 2019).

According to previous research, product characteristics are divided into two main categories of characteristics and motivational characteristics. Features such as after-sales service, advertising, design, upgrades, warranties can also be considered motivational and influential factors in buying products; these factors can contribute to the products' greater profitability. As mentioned in the research history, in the conceptual model presented by A. Seifi (2010), nationalism and the perceived necessity of product influence attitude and attitude affect imported goods' purchase intention (Seifi, 2010). Ahasanul Haque (2015) investigated the effect of the country of origin, brand, and quality of foreign products on purchase intention and the relationship between these factors has been confirmed (Haque, et  al., 2015).

Therefore, in this study, according to the background as mentioned above, the factors of the country of origin, the mental image of the brand, and the expectations of the characteristics of the products are considered as factors affecting attitude; demographic factors, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and attitude considered as factors influencing purchase intention. Therefore, the framework used in this research is derived from the two theories of reasoned action and planned behavior and the Biao Xie study model (Xie, 2012).

Findings from researches on demographic factors show that gender, age, gender, race, academic background, and income level affect people's purchasing intentions (Sharma & Parmar, 2018) (Akhter, 2003), so in this research, we set it as a hypothesis to examine if it has a significant relationship with intention to purchase or not. Demographic characteristics and general attitudes have been identified as significant predictors of sustainable behaviors. Demographic factors could be changed over time and across a country to also consider a limitation of this research.

H1: There is a significant relationship between demographic factors and intention to purchase Iranian goods.

Subjective norms refer to "a person's belief about whether significant others feel that he or she should perform a target behavior". Subjective norms represent group influence or social pressure to perform the behavior. Given that subject norm was a weak determinant of intention, several authors have suggested examining the linkage between subjective norm and attitude.

H2: There is a significant relationship between subjective norms and intention to purchase Iranian goods.

The theory of planned behavior proposes that perceived behavioral control of the focal person in a decision-making situation may affect his/her behavioral intentions. Perceived behavioral control is more important in influencing a person's behavioral intention, mainly when the behavior is not wholly under volitional control. For example, when purchasing an innovative product, consumers may need more resources (time, information, etc.) and more self-confidence in making a proper decision. Therefore, perceived behavioral control becomes a salient factor in predicting a person's behavioral intention under this purchasing situation (Chiou, 1998). Previous studies show that perceived behavioral control had significant positive influences on products' purchase intention, especially in adult consumers.

H3: There is a significant relationship between perceived behavioral control and intention to purchase Iranian goods.

From this previous research, imagery has been identified as a motivating force that can help consumers visualize product ownership. However, there has been an assumption that using imagery is acceptable adult behavior despite the truism (a widely held belief that lacks cognitive support that imagery is childish, mere fantasy, daydreaming, and a waste of time (Argyriou,  2012). The existence of the truism affects the assumption about imagery usage in consumer problem solving and may result in a confused consumer attitude.

H4: There is a significant relationship between the mental image of Iran and consumer attitudes.

Brand image information can be seen from logos or symbols used by companies to represent their products, where these symbols and logos differentiate from similar competitors and reflect the quality and vision and mission of the company. Companies use this image in attracting consumer interest by trying to provide information that will be interpreted later, consumers who are optimistic about the product tend to have a strong desire to choose and buy the preferred product. An intent to purchase as encouragement is a solid internal stimulus that motivates an action, where this impulse is influenced by stimulus and positive feelings about the product (Mubarok,  2018).

H5: There is a significant relationship between the brand image of Iran and consumer attitudes.

In the marketing research field, customer satisfaction is explained by expectation disconfirmation theory. A customer satisfaction score is calculated by the difference between customer expectations which a consumer estimates before using a product/service, and the perceived value that the consumer gets after using it. Therefore, if the stimulation is strong and positive, it will encourage consumers and increase their intent to purchase (Yamada,  2019).

H6: There is a significant relationship between customer expectations from characteristics of Iranian products and consumer attitudes.

Attitude can be described as the inner feeling of favorableness or otherwise that a consumer has towards a product (Zaremohzzabieh, ismail, Ahrari, & Samah, 2021). Attitudes are derived from beliefs accessible in memory,de consumer behavior, and may be affected by the context in which they are expressed (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000) (Medina-Molina, Rey-Moreno, &  Perianez-Cristobal, 2021).

H7: There is a significant relationship between consumer attitudes and intention to purchase Iranian goods.

This research is descriptive-analytic and is in the developmental-applied research group in terms of target. It is also considered as field research in terms of data collection based on the hypothesis tests. The information was collected in the Spring and Summer of 2020. 

A library method was used to collect information about previous research and identify the hypotheses in this field. A questionnaire was used to collect data on which validity and reliability were confirmed in similar research for designing a questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire evaluated using expert opinions and confirmatory factor analysis. A pre-test method used for reliability evaluation, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient used to calculate the reliability of different measurement instrumentation indices.

The statistical population of this study was consumers of Iranian goods in the city of Herat. Herat is one of the big cities in Afghanistan. This city after Kabul is considered the second most populous city in Afghanistan. Herat is the industrial pole and the essential cultural-artistic center of Afghanistan. Indigenous people speak Persian in the Herat dialect. The principal inhabitants of this city were Persian-speaking tribes, but now Herat has different ethnicities. Other ethnic groups include Farsi speakers 80%, Pashtuns 10%, Turkmens 4%, and other ethnicities such as Arabs, Baluchi. All people living in the ancient city of Herat are Muslims. About 60 percent are Sunni, and about 40 percent are Shiites. The largest mosque in Afghanistan is located in Herat. The largest religious university in Afghanistan, named Al Ghaith University, is located in this city. The city of Herat has 16 villages that are sampled in a clustering method.

On average, according to the number of residents in these areas, approximately 30 questionnaires were distributed in each region. The number of Iranian goods in the city of Herat was not countable, and the minimum sample size was 384. Thus, a sample of 500 consumers of Iranian goods was selected in the city of Herat. Among these, 439 questionnaires, which had enough accuracy for analysis, were the basis for this research analysis. Thus, the rate of return of the questionnaires was 0.878. The Five-point Likert scale, which is one of the most common measurement scales, was used in the research questionnaire for the main research questions. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data and express the demographic characteristics in this study. Inferential statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations (path analysis), simple linear regression, multiple regression, ANOVA, and t-test were used for data analysis, hypothesis testing, and conceptual model of research. In the inferential statistics section, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to determine whether the data were average or not. Based on the obtained results, the desired test (parametric) was performed. For data analysis, Smart PLS and SPSS software were used.

Testing and analyzing research hypotheses 

In this section, we have tried to review and analyze the research hypotheses more. We initially examine the first hypothesis: 

"There is a significant relationship between demographic factors and intent to purchase Iranian goods."

Single-sample T-tests and Anova or F-tests were used because of the different nature of demographic factors' variable structures. However, the numbers obtained in this test were higher than 0.05, which shows that none of the variable structures of demographic factors cause a difference in Herat citizens' average purchasing of Iranian goods. Therefore, hypothesis 1, namely, the relationship between demographic factors and the intention to purchase Iranian goods, is not confirmed.

Multiple regression and linear regression methods, as well as structural equation modeling and in particular the path analysis technique, are used to test other research hypotheses. First, through regression, the purchase intention is considered a dependent variable, and the indices of subjective norms and behavioral control are considered independent variables separately and entered into the model. Then, for future hypotheses, a separate regression was taken to identify the impact of the independent variables of the country of origin, brand, and customer expectations of the characteristics of Iranian products on the dependent variable. Finally, a regression was taken for review and identified the effect of the variable of attitude on purchase intention's dependent variable. 

R2 or determination coefficient shows how independent variables can predict the dependent variable. According to the information obtained from Table 2, independent variables of subjective norms and behavioral control can predict changes in the dependent variable of purchase intention by 23% and 50%, respectively. The independent variables of the country of origin, brand, and customers' expectations of Iranian products with 14%, 23%, and 21% could predict changes in the dependent variable of attitude. The independent variable of attitude with 29% can explain the changes in the dependent variable of purchase intention, which indicates the model's suitability for predicting the dependent variable.

The significance level indicated by the sig symbol indicates a significant or insignificant relationship between independent and dependent variables. This value should be less than 0.05 to confirm the significance of the relationship. As indicated in the table, the significance level of 0.009, 0.015 shows that the relationship between subjective norms and behavioral control with purchase intention is significant. The numbers 0.032, 0.021, 0.002, and 0.018 respectively indicate the relationship between the country of origin, brand, and customer expectations of product characteristics with the consumer attitude. It also showed the relationship between consumer attitudes and purchase intention. The beta coefficient determines the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. This value indicates that, on average, how much the dependent variable varies per unit of change in the independent variable.

The path coefficient calculation method was used in order to test the hypotheses.

As shown in Table 2, the determination coefficient determined for dependent variables. These results show that the country of origin predicts about 30% of consumer attitudes' variations, brand, and product features expectations. About 19% of purchase intention changes are predicted by perceived behavioral control variables, subjective norms, and consumer attitudes.

According to the numbers obtained from Figure 4, the country of origin's variable has a positive and significant impact on consumer attitudes (path coefficient: 0.207). Iran's brand image has a positive and significant impact on consumer attitudes (path coefficient: 0.257). An expectation of product characteristics positively and significantly impacts consumer attitudes (path coefficient: 0.201). Perceived behavioral control has a positive and significant effect on consumer purchasing intention (path coefficient: 0.322). Subjective norms have a positive and significant effect on consumer purchasing intention (path coefficient: 0.386). Attitude has a positive and significant relationship with purchase intention (path coefficient: 0.2). Moreover, the impact of demographic factors on consumer purchasing intention was not confirmed.

The first hypothesis, which explains the relationship between demographic factors and purchasing intention, is confirmed by Li Guo (2011), Le & Doan (2011), Biao Xie (2012) (Guo, 2011) (Le &  Doan, 2011) (Xie, 2012). According to the results obtained in this study, 48.3% of respondents were women, and 51.7% of them were men, of which 236 were married, and 203 were single. In terms of age, most people are in the age group of 36-45. The highest income is from the level of 3200 to 6500 Afghans. In terms of education, most of those who responded to the questionnaire had a diploma. On the other hand, people in Herat's city had a great tendency to buy Iranian goods. Nevertheless, having studied the purchase intention's demographic factors, we found that the categorizations such as education level, different incomes, gender, and marriage did not affect the purchase intention.

The second hypothesis, which is the effect of subjective norms on purchasing intention, has been confirmed, according to H. Derakhshanian (2014), M. Dorbin (2019), Biao Xie (2012) (Derakhshanian, 2014) (Dorbin, 2019) (Xie, 2012). We concluded that consumers' subjective norms significantly impact purchasing intentions than other factors during the research. According to the researcher, this refers to consuming goods by consumers since most consumers of Iranian products have already lived in Iran.

The relationship between the perceived behavioral control and the purchase intention of Iranian goods is confirmed and positive in the studies of Le & Doan (2011), Biao Xie (2012) (Lee & Back, 2010) (Xie, 2012).

The fourth hypothesis was confirmed in studies by researchers such as Diamantopoulos (2011) (Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, &  Palihawadana, 2011). In his research, Reha Saydan (2013) considers the image of the country of origin as a crucial psychological factor (Saydan, 2013). In his research, Bruno Godey (2012) showed the importance of the country of origin in consumer decision-making (Godey, et al., 2012). According to the findings, the relationship between the country of origin and consumer attitude has been confirmed, which is a positive and significant relationship. Considering that the religion, culture, beliefs, and lifestyles of the two countries of Iran and Afghanistan are very similar and close, Afghan consumers prefer to use this country's products, especially food products. When buying products and especially food, they try to purchase Iranian branded products.

Studies of H. Derakhshanian (2014), M. Dorbin (2010), Li Guo (2011), Le & Doan (2014), Ahssanul Haque (2015), Diamantopoulos (2015), Lee & Back (2010) indicated that the brand image and familiarity with the product brand have a positive relationship with attitude and intention of purchasing foreign products (Derakhshanian, 2014) (Dorbin, 2019) (Guo, 2011) (Le &  Doan, 2011) (Haque, et  al., 2015) (Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, &  Palihawadana, 2011) (Lee & Back, 2010). According to Bruno Godey (2012), the brand was recognized as an essential criterion for choosing goods. This study's findings also confirm the relationship between the brand of Iranian products and consumer attitudes (Godey, et al., 2012).

Based on the sixth hypothesis, factors such as price, design, after-sales service, packaging, and vendors influence customers' intention to purchase. According to studies by M. Dorbin (2010), Li Guo (2011), Le & Doan (2011), Ahssanul Haque (2015), the relationship between customer expectations to product characteristics and attitude is confirmed (Dorbin, 2019) (Guo, 2011) (Le &  Doan, 2011) (Haque, et  al., 2015).

Afghan consumers use Iranian products more quickly than similar foreign products. However, during the conversations with sample members, it became clear that quality is crucial for these consumers.

On the other hand, they prefer to spend their money on buying Iranian goods. Nevertheless, unfortunately, except for food products that are somewhat consistent with their taste, other Iranian products, such as home appliances, electrics are not acceptable. Most of the goods that Iran exports to this country are very different in terms of quality than the goods exported to other countries, or at least they do not have the same quality as their goods exported to other countries in the region. The goods with shallow quality are exported from Iran to this country. In the future, this could be a problem for exporters of Iranian goods to Afghanistan. Afghan consumers all want to buy Iranian products. Exporters should not miss this opportunity and try to keep their loyal customers satisfied.

This study also confirms the relationship between consumer attitudes and the intention to purchase Iranian goods. According to the sample members' views, most Afghans consider Iran a friend and brother country and do not differentiate between their culture and religion. In general, people of this country feel right about Iran, which has impacted purchasing products imported from Iran. Unfortunately, this opinion is not valid entirely among younger people who have recently returned from Iran to Afghanistan. They consider the hardships that some Iranians sometimes had with them, which has somewhat affected their purchase intention.

The modified conceptual model is based on the results of the research, according to Figure 5. As shown in Figure 5, we can prioritize independent variables based on the effect of the dependent variable on the purchase intention of Iranian goods. In this way, the most significant impact is attributed to the variable of subjective norms. The effect level for this variable is 0.386; the second effect belonged to the variable of perceived behavioral control, and the lowest effects also belonged to the variable of attitude with 0.20. The variables influencing the attitude variable are brand image, country of origin, and product characteristics expectations.

The results of this paper may contribute to the literature on predicting and explaining consumer attitudes and behavioral intentions to buy foreign versus domestic products in developing countries. Products and services coming from developed countries could not fear non-tariff barriers such as consumer ethnocentrism when penetrating developing countries' markets. However, products and services coming from developing countries should target only non-ethnocentric consumers when trying to enter other developing countries' markets. Another contribution of this paper is that the modified conceptual model is based on the research results, according to Figure 5.  This research examined the factors affecting the intention to purchase Iranian goods in Afghanistan (Herat city). Therefore, its managerial implication could be generalized for other developing countries or companies that want to expand their market by considering the Afghanistan market as a destination for their products. The conclusion can be made by proving six hypotheses out of 7 hypotheses of the research. Factors such as brand image, the country of origin, expectations of product characteristics, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and attitudes have a positive and significant relationship with the intention to buy Iranian goods in Afghanistan. Among the variables of the conceptual model, demographic factors are not related to purchase intention. It was also found that subjective norms are more important in encouraging the purchase of Iranian goods by the people of Herat. Based on past studies, it can be concluded that any of the factors mentioned in this study can encourage customers to purchase foreign goods more effectively.

Limitations on this research mainly concern the sample size, composed only of 439 individuals; it seems relatively limited to reach total generalization. Moreover, the location (city of Herat) is also the limitation of this research and considering different cities of Afghanistan due to significant ethnic differences should consider other criteria in an application for companies. Also, the demographic factor could be changed over time and across countries so we could also consider it a limitation of this research.

In turn, this study is one of the first research related to marketing in Afghanistan. SPSS and PLS software were used for analysis. Finally, it should be noted that this research can be considered a scientific source for future research in marketing in Afghanistan. It will also provide accurate knowledge of the companies exporting Iranian goods to Afghanistan to target and take reasonable and profitable activities to benefit all parties.

Future research can be done on the following issues: to investigate why in Herat's city, demographic factors do not affect the intention to buy Iranian goods. In the next research, the type of product could be specified, and the variables for that particular item could be checked. Also, the factors studied in this study can be measured in other cities of Afghanistan.

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