Ethiopian Consumer’s Behavior towards Purchasing Locally Produced Apparel Products: An Extended Model of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Consumers in developing countries, particularly Africans, are strongly criticized for their unfavorable feeling about locally produced apparel products. With this concern, this paper explores the determinants of Ethiopian consumers’ purchasing behavior towards locally produced apparel products by using the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model. A self-administered questionnaire which consists of open and closed-ended questions was developed based on the literature. Cross-sectional data were collected from 478 Ethiopian consumers by following the convenience sampling technique and were analyzed by structural equation modeling with AMOS V.26.0. Te ethnocentric tendency of Ethiopian consumers was found at a moderate level. Te consumers had a very high purchasing intention towards locally produced apparel products but had a low actual purchasing behavior. Te result also showed that Ethiopian consumers use price, garment ftness, comfort, and color as the most important attributes, while the country of origin and notions were found to be the moderate important attributes. Moreover, consumers’ attitude towards locally produced apparel products was found as the most infuential factor, while perceived behavioral control and subjective norms were the least infuential factors in afecting consumers’ purchasing intention. Te study’s fndings provide insight into domestic apparel consumption as well as the factors afecting consumer purchasing intentions and behavior in the Ethiopian context. Te study incorporates product attributes and ethnocentrism into the TPB model to investigate their impact on consumer purchasing intentions which are rarely investigated together.


Introduction
In the early 21 st century, Ethiopia emerged as one of Africa's fastest-growing countries [1].Te country has Africa's second-largest population, the largest open-air market in Africa, called Mercato [2,3], and is among African countries with cotton production and export potential, with an estimated area of 2.5 hectares suited for this product [4].Tis potential had not been used as a competitive advantage until roughly a decade ago in the trade of a variety of items, both with international and local demand.To survey the reasons why those potentials had not been exploited to the advantage of the country, a preliminary study was conducted by using focus group discussion.Te discussion was held through Microsoft teams within the local apparel marketers, merchandisers, and company managers on December 23, 2022.According to the discussion, the experts noted that Ethiopian apparel consumers are unwilling to consume local apparel products.Te consumers' unwillingness to consume local apparel products found in the preliminary study was similar to other studies [5][6][7].Tis preliminary study also found that consumers have a low response to locally manufactured apparel products, which is in line with diferent kinds of literature [6,8,9].
One of the aspects infuencing garment product trades is the consumers' favorable feelings and proclivity towards products and their cues.Consumers buy a product when they have a favorable feeling and tendency towards the product [10].Te consumers' willingness to buy a product comes from their intention towards the product [11].However, developing nation consumers, particularly Africans, are strongly criticized for their unwillingness to consume locally produced apparel products.It is mainly because of their favorable perception and impression of global brands and their low level of attitude and knowledge towards the made-in African products that lead the consumers to have low demand for homemade apparel products and to consume imported ones [6,7].Tese consumers' unwillingness to consume products manufactured in African countries has left the manufacturing industry of African countries with a small market share with decreasing trends in the global market [5].
Correspondingly, Ethiopian consumers are unwilling to consume locally produced apparel products; moreover, consumers are not proud of made-in-Ethiopia apparel products.It is mainly because of their favorable perception and impression of global brands with greater product quality, higher brand reputation, higher perceived values, and more perceived social prestige when utilizing global brands [5][6][7].Due to the consumer's low response and unwillingness to consume locally produced apparel products, the import trade has been increasing, from $1.52 billion in 1997 to $17.9B in 2017 [12].Tese are the reasons for importing 83% of the clothing demand of the country with hard currency, due to the lack of demand [13].
In this regard, understanding the behavior of the consumer to maintain a competitive advantage in today's everexpanding competition and global marketing environment is mandatory.In this dynamic global market, empathetic consumer needs and navigating the customer towards a product by creating certain wants in the minds of the customer are a routine task for producers, marketers, and researchers.Consequently, this study intended to explore the determinants of Ethiopian consumers' purchasing behavior towards locally produced apparel products.Consumer behavior has been studied in "developed nations" [14][15][16] and other developing countries [17][18][19][20], but there are a limited number of studies and published papers regarding Ethiopian consumers' purchasing behavior towards apparel products during purchasing or use [21].Te study incorporates product attributes and consumer ethnocentrism into the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model to examine their impact on consumers' purchasing intentions which are rarely studied in such a combination.As a result, this study was performed to fll this gap by utilizing TPB's extended model.
As such, the study posed three research questions (RQs) to fll the gaps mentioned above RQ1: what apparel product attributes are the most important factors for Ethiopian consumers to select apparel products?RQ2: what are Ethiopian consumers' ethnocentric tendencies towards locally produced apparel products?RQ3: how and what are the factors that signifcantly afect Ethiopian consumers' purchasing behavior of locally produced apparel products?To answer these questions, the "theory of planned behavior" model was utilized to build a conceptual framework, which was then expanded by adding relevant variables called consumer ethnocentrism and product attributes.Te unit study of this study is industrial-based apparel products.Tis study looks at the attitude of the consumer, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control (PBC), consumer ethnocentrism, and apparel product attributes which were jointly used as determinant factors of purchasing intention.Also, consumer behavior is directly determined by consumer intention and consumers' PBC towards their behavior.Tis study incorporates product attributes and consumer ethnocentrism into the TPB model, which has been rarely studied in this manner.As a result, the research fndings will be helpful to marketers, producers, consumers, policymakers, and researchers to fll their potential conceptual gaps.

Literature Review
2.1.Teoretical Review.Te feld of consumer behavior tries to understand, examine, explain, and predict consumers' reactions in markets.According to Mohan [22], consumer behavior is the study of the buying units and the exchange processes involved in acquiring, consuming, and disposing of goods, services, experiences, and ideas.Consumer behavior is the study of how a consumer's emotions, perceptions, attitudes, and preferences infuence their purchasing behavior [23].In this arena of the study, researchers used diferent determinants to predict the purchasing behavior of consumers.In several diferent study felds such as online purchase behavior [24,25] or ethical behavior [26], behavioral intention is an immediate predictor of actual behavior [26][27][28].Tus, scholars mostly exploited the insights of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) [29,30] and its follow-up and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) [31] to draw on the suggested intention-behavior relation and to look into the causes of such behavioral intentions.TPB is a theory designed to forecast a person's behavior [27].A model is formulated at a very general level and applies to any behavior of interest to social and behavioral scientists.Te TPB model states that behavioral intentions are determined by attitude (one's own opinions about the behavior), subjective norm (opinions of others about the behavior), and perceived behavior control (selfefcacy towards the behavior) [27,32].Further in this study, the theory is extended by adding variables such as ethnocentrism (a psychological concept that describes how consumers purchase products based on the country of origin) and apparel product attributes (characteristics of a product which make them unique from other products) as determinates of intention.
As a locally produced apparel product (domestic product) is a unit study of this research, we added relevant variables to the model to achieve the objective and to increase the accuracy of the model to predict consumer behavior.Domestic products are those produced on a country's territory using the majority of its resources and designated as "made-in" the country where the consumer lives, whereas foreign products are those manufactured in any other country [33,34].So, based on the literature, 2 Complexity product attributes and consumer ethnocentrism are found as the determinant variables of consumers' purchasing intention.Product attributes are features of a product that make them unique from other products [35], whereas ethnocentrism means a practice of considering the origin of the product and giving a superior view to domestic products while purchasing [36].Based on the theoretical review, the model was prolonged by adding relevant variables called product attributes and consumer ethnocentrism and constructing an extended theory of planned behavior model to structure the study framework and the research hypotheses (H).

Hypotheses Development 2.2.1. Purchase Intention and Purchase Behavior.
According to Mirabi et al. [37], purchase intention is defned as a situation in which a consumer is more likely to purchase a specifc product in a specifc condition.Te purchase intention of a consumer relates to the consumer's favorable feelings towards a product.Tis essentially is a signal of consumer purchasing behavior [38].Previous research demonstrated that when customers are aware of the value of locally produced goods, they are more willing to take into account and tolerate local difculties when making buying decisions [39,40].Although it has been expected that intention is a strong predictor of behavior, in particular circumstances, it may not be consistent.Other researchers revealed a high degree of association between intention and behavior [41,42].Te consumer's purchasing intention will have an insignifcant efect on the consumer's purchasing behavior when the determinate factors afect the intention negatively [43].In accordance with the discussion, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1. Consumers' purchasing intentions towards locally manufactured apparel products positively afect Ethiopian consumers' purchasing behavior

Determinants of Purchasing Intention towards Local
Product.Attitude is one of the TPB framework's specifc constructs.Attitude is a psychological path in which a person can consistently favor or dislike a specifc object [44].
Numerous studies that examined the link between attitude and purchasing intention concluded that attitude is a critical factor in predicting consumers' purchasing intentions [45,46].Purchase intention and attitude are favorably and directly correlated [17,47].Attitude does not always have a signifcant efect on purchasing intention because various situational factors might infuence actual purchase decisions [48,49].Tajuddin et al. [45] determined that the most important predictor variable in the model was the attitude towards the intention.In accordance with the discussion, the following hypothesis is proposed.
H2. Consumers' attitude towards locally manufactured apparel products positively afects Ethiopian consumers' purchasing intentions Te subjective norm (SN) is a crucial component of TPB that is utilized to forecast behavioral intention [27].SN means a social infuence on a certain behavior [50].Individuals' subjective norm is their perception of societal pressure to engage in a particular action [31].According to earlier research, consumers' SN has a benefcial impact on their intention to purchase apparel products [39,42,51].Nguyen et al. [47] found that SN has a positive contribution to apparel purchasing intention, and it is the most infuential predictor of purchase intention.However, in another study, SN was found to positively infuence the intention but had the lowest efect [41].In accordance with the discussion, the following hypothesis is proposed: H3.Subjective norms regarding locally manufactured apparel products positively afect Ethiopian consumers' purchasing intentions towards locally produced apparel products Te defnition of perceived behavior control (PBC) is the perceived ease or difculty of executing a behavior [52].PBC examines a person's perception of how an easy or difcult behavior is to be carried out [31].Several previous studies have been conducted to investigate the role of PBC in consumer purchasing habits [53,54], and PBC was discovered to have a signifcant positive impact on purchase intention.Yet, research also states that PBC might have various impacts [55].Chi et al. [53] reported that increasing PBC may help to increase consumers' desire for local clothing.In accordance with the discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed: H4.Perceived behavioral control of the consumer towards locally produced apparel products positively afects consumers' purchasing intentions H5.Perceived behavioral control of the consumer towards locally produced apparel products positively afects consumers' purchasing behavior.

Extending Determinant Variables of Consumer
Behavior.Several studies have identifed the key features that consumers use to make purchasing decisions [56,57].According to Lonial and Zaim [58], product attributes are what make it distinct from other products.Attributes include things such as size, color, favor, package type, and other features [59].Product attributes are highly correlated with purchasing intention and are highly infuenced by the purchasing behavior and decision of the consumer [59,60].Previous research has shown that not all attributes are equally important in consumer purchasing decisions and that some are more important than others.Te most important attributes are also difered by country [57,59].In this regard, the purpose of this study is to answer the following question:

Complexity
According to Bennur [56], Islam et al. [60], and Jin and Bennur [57], apparel product attributes have a signifcant consequence on consumers' "purchasing intention."One of the most important factors infuencing consumers' apparel purchasing behavior is apparel attributes [28,45].Te most important attributes that consumers use while evaluating an apparel product are inconsistent and may change over time [59,60].As a result, it is crucial to predict future changes in key attributes while also fguring out how certain product attributes are important currently to customers.Terefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H6. Apparel product attributes positively afect Ethiopian consumers' purchasing intentions towards locally manufactured apparel products
Consumer ethnocentrism is an extended variable that we added to determine the consumer's intention as a recent researcher used it to investigate the consumers' inner concept that defnes how consumers purchase products based on their country of origin [61].Te term "ethnocentrism" was frst used in sociology by William et al. [67] and brought to marketing and consumer behavior [36,61].Ethnocentrism is a word composed of the terms "ethnic," which means group, and "centrism," which means focused [63,64].Ethnocentric individuals believe in the inherent superiority of their ethnic group [64].Consumer ethnocentrism is an intrinsic motivation and a perceived moral obligation to buy domestic products when people believe that their personal or their country's national well-being is under threat from imports [65,66].Generally, consumers from less developed and developing nations have low ethnocentrism towards the local product [61,[67][68][69], but in developed nations, consumers have positive ethnocentric intentions towards their locally manufactured apparel [70].Consumers in Zimbabwe and South Africa had a moderately high level of ethnocentrism [71].Terefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H7. Consumers' ethnocentrism positively afects Ethiopian consumers' purchasing intentions towards locally manufactured apparel products
In this research, three antecedents of consumers were used as factors to investigate the Ethiopian consumer's ethnocentric tendencies.Te factors that this research adopts are ethnic-related attributes, self-image congruence, and consumer cosmopolitanism.Ethnic-related attributes have been defned as the shared identity of a group of people based on a common historical background, ancestry, and knowledge of identifying symbolic elements such as nationality, religious afliation, and language [72].Ethnicrelated attributes play a specifc and signifcant role in the consumer's consumption of apparel product behavior [73].Consumers' ethnic attributes have a positive impact on consumers' ethnocentrism, but the ethnic group is afected by the predominated group [74].Furthermore, consumers perceive clothing as self-expression; thus, consumers will frequently consider the brand image's similarity to its selfconcept [75,76].Self-image congruence refers to the compatibility of the user's image (personality) of a specifc product or brand with the customers' self-concept (real self and ideal self ) [77].Self-image congruence was a very good predictor of customer intention and satisfaction as well as brand preferences among consumers [75].Customers who were more satisfed and preferred locally produced apparel products were those who had greater degrees of self-image congruity.Self-image congruity, on the other hand, may not be an important factor in the purchase and evaluation of all product categories.Self-image congruence acts as a driving force for preferring a brand, so anticipating what a consumer's self-image congruence looks like and forming positive attitudes to retain it in this dynamic market are important [76].Consumer cosmopolitanism is consumers' global citizenship and a feeling to purchase products from various sources [78].Cosmopolitanism is defned here by Riefer and Diamantopoulos [79] as a three-dimensional construct that measures how open-minded a consumer is to other nationalities and cultures, how appreciative they are of the diversity that results from the availability of products from those origins, and how inclined they are to consume products with international origins and other ethnic cultural values.A study by Prince et al. [80] and Rybina et al. [81] indicates that consumer cosmopolitanism has a negative relationship with consumer ethnocentrism.Han [82], Parts [83], and Zeugner-Roth et al. [78] revealed that consumers with higher consumer cosmopolitanism prefer imported products to domestic products.However, consumersin developed countries have a contrary result [84].Terefore, the following hypotheses are proposed: H7a.Ethnic-related attributes have a positive infuence on consumers' ethnocentrism H7b.Consumer's self-image concurrence towards the consumption of an apparel product positively infuences consumer ethnocentrism H7c.Consumer's cosmopolitanism has a positive efect on consumer ethnocentrism Based on the literature reviewed and hypothesis developed about consumers' apparel purchasing behavior and its determinant factors, a conceptual frame was developed.Figure 1 shows the study's conceptual framework, which incorporates the stated hypotheses.

Research Design.
Te design of this study was a crosssectional, explanatory, and descriptive survey.To conduct the study, we adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches.Te general working procedure is depicted in Figure 2.

Sampling and Data Collection.
Before conducting the main study, a pilot study of 20 respondents from the Ethiopian Institute of Textiles and Fashion Technology (EiTEX) staf was conducted.Te pilot study aims to analyze the measuring items' completeness, language, clarity, structure, and appropriateness.After conducting the pilot study, data were collected by using convenience sampling.4 Complexity Te main data were collected from Addis Ababa city by following a convenience sampling technique through physically distributed questionnaires.For the data collection, six major parts of the city were identifed as the most populated clothing retail in Addis Ababa.Te data were flled in by those willing customers walking to the selected clothing retail places during working hours.Te data were collected in three months from March to May 2022.Te reason for choosing Addis Ababa city consumers was because of the diversity of the people.A total of 539 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents, with 478 complete and useable responses received accounting for an 88.7 percent response rate.

Data Collection Instrument.
A systematic questionnaire was utilized to collect data.Tere were three sections in the questionnaire.In the frst part, respondents were requested to provide their demographic information such as age, gender, education level, marital status, and monthly income level.Te second section included 55 items designed to assess consumers' behavior and intentions regarding locally made garment products on a 7-point Likert scale (strongly agree � 7 and strongly disagree � 1).Te measurements for each variable were adapted from the literature.Te extended variable, product attributes were measured by using 16 items (brand (known), price (afordable), country of origin (made-in label), approval of others, fabrication/construction, size/ft (matches with body size), aesthetic of the garment, comfort, notions (trims and accessories), color (type and intensity), fashionability (recent product), design features (shape and silhouette), style/design/uniqueness, durability (lasts longer), seasonality (style goes with season), care label (how to wash and iron), and fabric content and composition) from the literature [85,86].Consumer ethnocentrism was scaled by using the 17 consumer ethnocentrism scale: CETSCALE developed by Shimp and Sharma [36].Consumers' attitudes were measured by using fve diferent measures related to attitude adapted from literature [52,87,88].Five fully anchored "subjective norm" items were modifed from Ajzen [89] and Sparks et al. [90].Te consumers-perceived behavioral control towards the purchasing of the local brand was measured by using three metrics modifed from Ajzen and Tomas [52], Kidwell and Jewell [91], and Sparks and Shepherd [92].Consumers' purchasing intention was measured by using fve measuring metrics adapted from [93][94][95].Consumers' purchasing behavior was measured by using fve diferent metrics Complexity adapted from [96,97].Te sources of the selected product attributes and the other constructs are summarized in Table 1.In the last section, the participants were asked to list any other variables that they considered while purchasing clothing.

Data Analysis.
Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the scale's reliability, and a result of 0.91 was obtained, which is greater than the threshold of 0.7 [102].Te Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and the Bartlett test of sphericity were used to assess the questionnaire's construct validity.Te overall scale's KMO measure of sampling adequacy was 0.879, which was higher than the suggested value of 0.60.[67].Te sphericity test by Bartlett was found to be signifcant (2 (2211) � 18048.289,p < 0.01) [103].Te acquired data were examined for missing data, normality, and multicollinearity before statistical analysis.Te missing value in this study ranges from 0.2% to 0.6% per item, indicating that the values are within the threshold range  6 Complexity [104,105].So, missing values were replaced using the estimated mean through SPSS.Te skewness and kurtosis were also found at the normal range (all values were within limits ±1 and ±3) [106].Te tolerance range values were between 0.618 and 0.971, and the variance infation factor (VIF) ranged from 1.030 to 1.618, which, thus, are in the acceptable range [107].Te result showed that none of the independent variables was highly correlated with any other exogenous variable.So, there was no problem of high correlation among the variables.
Since the dataset is normal, the maximum likelihood estimation methodology was selected as the most suitable way for conducting confrmatory factor analysis (CFA).CFA was chosen because it is a statistical method that may be used to assess a theoretical model with a specifc set of data [108].Tis study also used covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM).CB-SEM is better for factor-based models and provides better model ft indices [109].Te model ft was assessed in this study by using the comparative ft index (CFI), the goodness-of-ft index (GFI), the root (1) Consumers' attitude towards locally produced apparel product [87,88,92,98,99] (A) I believe that the use of locally produced products by me will contribute to the growth of the domestic industry (B) I believe that the use of local domestic apparel products by me will help in reducing unemployment (C) I believe that the use of local domestic apparel products by me will help in the growth of the country's GDP (D) Generally, I have a favorable attitude towards locally manufactured apparel products (2) Subjective norms [89,90,94] (A) When I decide to buy clothes, I am free from the infuence of other people (B) Other people infuence me to buy locally manufactured apparel products (C) Te views of other people that I respect infuence my decision to buy domestic products (D) I feel that other people infuence me to buy locally made apparel products (E) I do not feel that other people infuence me to purchase a foreign apparel brand (3) Perceived behavioral control [52,91,92,100] (A) I am free to choose locally manufactured apparel products when purchasing clothing apparel (B) If I want, I can easily buy local products when I buy clothes (C) I am confdent that if I want, I can choose to buy locally manufactured apparel products (4) Consumers purchasing intention [93][94][95]98] (A) I would like to use domestic apparel products to support the local industry (B) If I fnd locally manufactured apparel products in the store when I go shopping, I would likely purchase it (C) I intend to buy local apparel products because I am concerned about the growth of the domestic industry (D) I would patronize and recommend the use of domestic apparel products (E) I intend to buy domestic apparel products instead of foreign brand (5) Consumers purchasing behavior [87,96,97] (A) I use to buy domestic apparel products (B) I buy locally manufactured clothes instead of foreign brands even if the quality is lower (C) I purchase local apparel brands instead of foreign brands even if more expensive than foreign brands (D) When buying clothes, I pay attention that it is locally manufactured (E) I avoid a foreign apparel product brand because of local concerns (6) Consumer's self-image congruence on homemade industrial apparel products [75,77,101] (A) Wearing locally made clothes strongly refects my image (B) I want to be seen wearing homemade clothes by other people around me .. .. (C) In general, wearing homemade clothing is a type of clothing that I would recommend to my loved ones (7) Consumers cosmopolitanism [78,79,82,83] (A) I have a positive view of buying and using cultural clothes of other ethnic groups (B) Te production location of a local product does not afect my purchasing decision (C) I prefer to be a citizen of the country rather than of any particular ethnicity Complexity mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the χ 2 values.Furthermore, paired sample t-tests were used to compare the mean score diferences between the variables of a respondent. 2 outlines the respondent's descriptive statistics and characteristics.Among the participants, 52.1% (n � 249) were male.Regarding age, the highest number of respondents falls within the age ranges of 25-34 which is around 41.1% of the sample size, followed by 19-24 years (33.7%), and 35-44 years of age which accounts for 13.4% of the total responses.Concerning the educational qualifcation levels of the respondents, a large proportion of the research participants (72.7%) have completed their university degrees.Based on the Ethiopian government's taxation rate, the respondent's monthly income level is categorized into four bases: low-income level (<1,650 birrs), lower-middle level (1,651-5,250 birr), uppermiddle level (5,251-10,900 birr), and high-income level (>10,900 birrs), and the majority of the respondents fall within the upper-middle level which accounts for 36%.Regarding the marital status of the respondents, 56.1% were unmarried, 41.4% of the respondents were married, and the rest 2.5% were divorced.

Descriptive Analysis.
To identify the most important apparel product attributes that Ethiopian consumers employed while evaluating and purchasing an apparel product, the respondents were invited to level the importance of the product attribute.Te result is presented in Figure 3.As the mean values indicate, Ethiopian consumers use price (mean = 6.46) as the most important attribute followed by aesthetics (mean = 6.17), garment size/ftness (mean = 6.04), and comfort (mean = 6.0.3).Te result indicates that Ethiopian consumers used multiple attributes while purchasing an apparel product.Te mean value of consumers' ethnocentrism towards locally manufactured apparel products is 4.46 (Figure 4), which means that the variables' scores range in moderate levels [110].Te paired sample t-test result also indicates that Ethiopian consumers have a high purchasing intention (mean = 5.76) but have low actual buying behavior (mean = 3.28) as presented in Figure 4. Tis means that Ethiopian consumers' response to locally produced apparel products is low, but the consumer's response to consuming locally made products leads to a reduction in hard currency imports [5,111] (Karoui et al., 2019).

Model Validations and Verifcations.
To check the compatibility of the variable to the model and its validity, CFA was used (Figure 5).
Examining the convergent validity of the measurement model can be performed by using the average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR) methods.According to the AVE and CR values obtained (Table 3), all values exceeded the cutof values with p � 0.01 [113].Te model demonstrated convergent validity because all of the loadings were signifcant.According to Hair et al. [102], for discriminant validity, the correlation value must be smaller than the AVE 2 for all constructs.As shown in Table 3, all factor correlation values were lower than the AVE 2 during CFA model testing, reaching the required thresholds for discriminant validity.All nine parameters in this study were signifcantly associated at the p 0.05 level.

Model Fit of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).
Finally, the research model was tested by using CB-SEM, and the path is presented in Figure 6.
Te summary of the goodness-of-ft indices for the measurement model, as shown in Table 4, revealed that all values were acceptable, as were the results of factor analysis, convergent validity, and overall values for AVE, CR, and DV [102].

Variables' Direct and Indirect Efects. As shown in
Figure 1, the research model employs the consumer's PBC ability as a predictor of both behavioral intention and actual conduct.As a result, the direct and indirect efects of the factors were explored in this study.Each independent variable signifcantly afects the consumer's purchasing behavior, as seen in Table 5.Consumer attitude (0.154) has a somewhat greater indirect efect than ethnocentrism (0.101), product attribute (0.088), SN (0.071), and PBC (0.045).

Hypotheses Testing.
Te p value was utilized to determine the signifcance of the association between the independent and dependent variables.Te conceptual structure of the study contains three layers, as shown in Figure 1.Te frst level is the hypothesized path of consumer ethnocentrism with ethnic-related attributes, consumer cosmopolitanism, and self-image congruence.Ethnicrelated attributes (p � 0.203) and consumers' self-image congruence (p < 0.01) have a positive and nonlinear and linear relationship, respectively, with CE.Tis is due to diferent reasons such as globalization and ethnic groups outweighing the national perception.Te determinant consumer's cosmopolitanism was found insignifcant (p � 0.078) and had a nonlinear relationship with CE.Tis is due to consumer's lower cultural openness.In the second level of the hypothesized path of consumer's purchasing intention with product attributes, attitude, CE, SN, and PBC, all determinates were found to be signifcant (p � 000).Te third level of the hypothesized path of consumers purchasing behavior towards locally produced apparel products with CPI and PBC was statistically signifcant at a 0.05 level 8 Complexity of signifcance, and H1 up to H7 are supported (Table 6).Te critical ratio (CR) for the regression path exceeded the cutof values > 1.96, and the path is signifcant at the 0.05 level [114].A change in independent factors resulted in a commensurate change in dependent variables, according to the regression coefcients.Table 6 shows the fndings of the SEM study.

Content Analysis-Responses to an Open-Ended Question.
In addition, the respondents were provided with an openended question to leave their general suggestions regarding locally produced apparel products.Figure 7 shows a summary of the respondents' open-ended question responses.Respondents were provided a limitation of locally produced apparel products and their reason for selecting an imported product over the local one.Among the 478 respondents, 193 (38.4%) responded to the open-ended question.Te Ethiopian consumers believed that locally produced apparel products were of poor quality in terms of design, style, and comfort than the imported apparel products; in addition, locally produced apparel products had limitations on size and color varieties (63.2%), accessibility (53.4%), lack of standard (measurement chart) as a nation (47.7%), products not being market-oriented/produced according to consumer's requirements, and design problems, as seen in Figure 7. Te fnding of the study is somehow in line with [6][7][8].

Discussion and Implications
Tis research was the frst study that considered the consumer's ethnocentrism (CE) and product attributes as a determinant variable of consumers' purchasing intention for locally produced apparel products by incorporating it into the TPB model in the Ethiopian scenario.It was discovered that the factor of consumer ethnocentrism had a favorable and signifcant association with purchase intention.A moderate level rate of ethnocentrism was found among Ethiopian consumers, which was similarly established in investigations conducted in many countries throughout the world including South Africa [71], Zimbabwe [115], and India [68].However, consumers in Kenya [69], Nigeria [116], Ghana [117], Tanzania [65], and Mozambique [118] had a low level of ethnocentrism.
Overall, this study concludes that Ethiopian consumers had a moderate level of ethnocentrism due to the consumer's positive intention towards the national symbol.Ethnicrelated attributes (p � 0.203) have a positive and nonlinear relationship with CE, as supported by [119] but other studies found a positive and signifcant relation with CE which is highly infuenced by globalization [73,74].Consumers' self-image congruence (p < 0.01 at coefcient 0.35) also found a signifcant and positive relationship with CE, supported by Hosany and Marti [101] and Rofanto et al. [76], which is due to the consumer's pride in national  which may be due to the consumer's lower cultural openness, but consumers in a developed nation have a signifcant relationship with consumer ethnocentrism as [84].
Te SEM results indicate that the apparel product attributes (beta � 0.239, p < 0.01) have a positive and signifcant relationship with purchasing intention.Te coefcient is less than 0.3 which means that the relationship was weak.Tis is due to the poor attributes of a locally produced apparel product, supported by [56,59,120].However, not all attributes have equal signifcance.Paired sample t-tests were used to see if participants placed difering emphases on the apparel evaluation cues.Te participants gave more attention to price (M � 6.46) as the most vital attribute followed by aesthetics, ftness, and comfort (see Figure 3).Te study partially agrees with [21,86].
Consumer's attitude towards locally produced apparel products was found to be positive and signifcant (ß � 0.418, p � 000) and was linked to the purchase intention for the locally produced apparel.Tis outcome syncs with [98,121].Te subjective norm was also found to have statistically signifcant relationships with consumers' purchase intentions towards locally produced apparel products.Tis outcome is consistent with the fndings of previous investigations [39,42,51].Te study also found that the subjective norm had a lower efect on predicting purchasing intention [41].Te lower efects of subjective norms are due to subjective norm-infuencing elements such as social pressure, social media, path dependency, world time context,   12 Complexity prominence, and similar harm to the consumer's shopping habit.Perceived behavioral control, which relates to the personality's belief about the personal and individual perceptions that control the aptitude to carry out the activities, had also found statistically signifcant relationships with consumers' purchase intentions towards locally produced apparel products.Te study [54,122] confrms the results.However, the authors in [55] found that PBC has a diverse efect on "purchase intention" and [123] found that PBC did not signifcantly infuence the purchasing intention and behavior of the consumer.Te result also confrmed that "consumer attitude" has a slightly greater infuence on consumers' "purchase intentions" than the other studied variables.Tis fnding agrees with the results of an earlier study [45].However, SN and PBC were found to have a lower efect on the prediction of purchasing intention, which is in sync with other studies [41,123].Consumers purchasing behaviors were also found to have a positive relationship with both PBC and consumers' purchasing intentions towards locally produced apparel products.Te study ascertains that both PBC and an intention to buy locally produced apparel products positively relate to consumers' purchasing behaviors towards locally produced apparel products.Tis fnding is consistent with earlier research [124].From the determinate factors of purchasing behavior, the outcome of the research indicated that the consumers' intention towards locally produced apparel products has the highest impact on consumers' purchasing intention.Te result syncs with [88].PBC was found to have a lower efect on the prediction of the consumers' purchasing behaviors towards locally produced apparel, agreed with other studies [41,123].

Te Teoretical Implication of the Study.
Tis study was carried out to predict the factors afecting the purchasing behavior and purchasing intention of Ethiopian consumers on locally manufactured apparel products.Te study uses Te fndings of the study can help to understand the perand attitude of the consumers towards locally produced apparel, the ability to perform their perceived behavior, and other efects that afect Ethiopian consumers' intention and behavior towards locally produced apparel products.Te results from the measurement model and structural model ofer key inputs for policymakers, marketers, manufacturers, and retailers.Te study also provides insight into the determinant factors that infuence consumers' intentions and behavior for purchasing locally produced apparel products.Te study will be benefcial for new investors also to recognize the purchasing intention and behavior of Ethiopian consumers and invest likewise in the design, development, and promotion of their brand.

. Conclusions
Te implications of this study shed some light on the important elements of marketing mix strategies to better integrate consumer buying behaviors and vital product attributes.Consumers in Ethiopia use a variety of product attributes as a signifcant predictor of their purchasing intention and behavior.Ethiopian consumers had a very Te study has certain limitations as well; therefore, it is important to carefully consider how the results should be interpreted.Te frst limitation is the consideration of only selected factors; thus, there is room for future studies to consider additional predictors of purchasing behavior, such as personality, lifestyle, religion, fnancial constraints, environmental issues, time, culture, and the infuence of social media and celebrities.Te second limitation is that a generic apparel product was considered as a unit study; thus, if a specifc clothing product was picked, the results may difer.Te third limitation is that the study explores the prepurchasing consumers' apparel evaluation intentions and purchasing behaviors towards locally produced apparel products; hence, there is room for upcoming scholars to incorporate the consumer's postpurchasing behavior and conduct a comparative study regarding the local vs.global and imported apparel brands.A fourth limitation of the study is the direct consideration of each variable's efect on purchasing intention and behavior without considering the efects of one variable via others, such as the efects of ethnocentrism and product attributes on purchase intention and behavior via attitudes.Future researchers are encouraged to suggest a more extensive framework while keeping the study's limitations in mind.
group discussion to dig out the practical problems of the cased Pilot study Non-propability (judgemental) sampling technique Piliminary study Sampling technique and sample size determination Convenience sampling technique for questionnaries By using unknown population formula and 40% of the calculated value to compensate any factor that will happen during data collection , 539 respondents were needed Design questionnare Final questionnare design and administration Identify research gap and defne research proplems Data collection Data screening Data analysis and interpretation of results Confirmatory factor analysis Structural equation model By using SPSS and AMOS V.26 sofware Discussion of fndings and implications Conclusion and future research direction

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Mean value of the studied variables.

Table 1 :
Data collection instrument.

Table 2 :
Descriptive statistics of demographic variables.Importance rate of the apparel product attributes (paired samples t-test mean result).

Table 3 :
Final CFA path analysis model's statistical summary.

Table 4 :
Final SEM path analysis model's statistical summary.
5.2.Te Practical Implication of the Study.Te study examines Ethiopian consumers' intentions and behavior towards locally produced apparel product purchase decisions.
Figure 7: Limitations of locally produced apparel products as mentioned by respondents.14Complexity high purchasing intention towards locally produced apparel products but had a low actual purchasing behavior towards locally produced apparel products.Price, aesthetics, garment ftness, comfort, and color are found as the most important attributes.Te ethnocentric tendencies of Ethiopian consumers are also found in the moderate range.Besides personal preferences, purchasing intention and behavior are determined by uncontrollable demographic factors such as education level, income level, age, and gender.Ethiopian consumers use multiple apparel product attributes and cues to evaluate an apparel product during prepurchasing and for their fnal purchasing decision.Te fnding suggests several implications on how to raise purchases of locally produced products among Ethiopian consumers.Te study's fndings provide important information to policymakers, marketers, producers, and retailers.Te study will help new investors know Ethiopian consumers' purchasing intentions and behavior and invest accordingly in the design, development, and promotion of their brand.6.1.Research Limitations and Future Directions.