Will the public pay for green products? Based on analysis of the influencing factors for Chinese’s public willingness to pay a price premium for green products

The promotion and use of green products is an important way to improve the living environment and reduce resource consumption and waste. Green products often have higher prices than general products due to its green attributes. According to the signal theory, purchasing green products can effectively convey the pro-social signals of the consumers. Therefore, based on the price premium characteristics of green products, this study constructed a theoretical and quantitative research model of the public’s WTP (willingness to pay) a price premium for green products and conducted an in-depth study on the consumers’ acceptability of premium for green products. A total of 991 valid questionnaires were analyzed, and the following results were obtained: (1) The public’s WTP a price premium for green products was generally low, with only 30.1% of respondents. (2) The influencing factors of the WTP a price premium for green products were conditional value>green value>functional value>value expression form>price importance. Economic factors were still the main reason that hinders the public’s WTP a price premium for green products. When the premium conveys public’s pro-social and pro-environmental signal characteristics, it could effectively improve the public’s acceptability of premium for green products. (3) The public’s WTP a price premium for green products varied with marital status, education level, working years, monthly income, and occupation characteristics. The public who were married, had a master’s degree or above, and had worked for 1 year or less and whose disposable monthly income was more than 50,000 yuan and whose occupation was engineers and technicians had the highest WTP a price premium for green products. (4) Policy guidance and media publicity had a positive moderating effect on the path of influencing factors on the WTP for green products. On this basis, this study proposes to deepen the exemplary leading role of the government and attach importance to the education and publicity function of green consumption consciousness. Enterprises should give full play to the influence of reference groups, highlight the value of green products, and popularize green products through appropriate price discount activities, so as to promote the public to participate more actively in the purchase of green products. At the same time, it can also provide reference and enlightenment for the formulation of relevant policies.