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freshness of the products. Thus, the products are safe to be consumed. Crispy Oyster Mushroom is
the most popular product that everyone loves. Till now, Restaurant Vegetarian S.I Jin Wei is able to
sell its frozen foods in 11 states within Malaysia and Singapore through agents.
2.1.2 REFERENCE PRICE
Price perception of customers always being influenced by reference prices. Reference prices do usually
come from competing products, thus it is important to enhance customers' perception on the product.
The product will become more superior and more expensive. The theoretical foundation of reference
price is Kahneman’s and Tversky’s (1979) prospect theory and it includes reference dependence, loss
aversion and sensitivity decrement in the theory. Previous research (Kalyanaram and Winer, 1995)
identified that the reference price comes from the product price of the last purchase. Furthermore,
customers will always use the reference price to make their choice of bands. Customers’ choice
presents loss aversion while under the influence of reference price. It shows that these characteristics
are aligned with the basic characteristics of prospect theory.
Besides, there are many researchers that have presented that (Hardie et al., 1993; Mazumdar et al.,
2005; Briesch et al., 1997) reference price can be divided in 2 parts named as internal reference price
and external reference price. Internal reference price is based on the past memory and past purchase
experience whereas the external reference price is triggered by external environmental price
incentives. There is a question that arises on which reference price acts significant in customer
purchasing. In the study of Hardie et al. (1993), it portrays that the external reference price acts more
significant than internal reference price. In contrast, Briesch and other researchers (1997) draw an
opposite opinion from their study. Addition to that, according to Mazumdar’s and Papatla’s (2000),
they identified that both internal and external reference prices have an impact and it will vary based on
different market segments. For example, there are certain customers who tend to be more sensitive to
internal reference prices while others may be more sensitive to external reference prices.
The most commonly cited explanation for reference price is based on Helson’s (1947, 1964)
adaptation-level theory, which asserts that judgments are proportional to deviations from a comparison
standard. The context of the adaptation level is quite sensitive presented by the mean of stimuli within
a contextual set (Helson 1964; Wedell 1995). According to Helson’s theory, it explains that there is a
significant relationship between past experiences and an individual's judgement on the present day.
Customers will take into account several criteria such as the reference points of previous judgments,
mean of similar stimuli depending on the recency and salience. Thus, customers’ past experiences and
encounters related to stimuli will be the key drivers to determine the adaptation level. From the view
of Monroe, 1990, customers will use the reference price to weigh average product prices from the
relevant category.
2.1.3 PURCHASE INTENTION
Purchase intention represents consumers’ preference or precedence to purchase a product or service.
Addition to that, purchase intention also describes customers' evaluation towards a product or service
to decide their willingness on whether to buy or not buy (Younus et al., 2015). Purchase intention is a
process related to consumers’ decision making which requires researchers to study about the reason
why customers will purchase certain products or services according to the brand which they are more
favorable. Purchase intention takes place when customers decide to buy a certain product or service
in a particular condition (Mirabi et al., 2015).
2.2 HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
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