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This study aims to investigate the influence of religiosity (intrinsic and extrinsic) and halal literacy on the intention of Muslim consumers to purchase halal branded food products in India. An extended version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was used as a framework. Apart from religiosity and halal literacy, the influence of attitude, social norms and perceived behavioural control of halal on buying intention were also tested.

The study uses a survey design. The data were collected from 350 individual respondents, using a closed-ended, structured questionnaire. The quality of the measurement model has been assessed through reliability testing, factor loading, average variance extracted and Fornell-Larcker criterion. The test of hypotheses was conducted by performing the partial least square structural equation modelling.

The result of hypotheses testing shows that both intrinsic and extrinsic types of religiosities did not have a direct influence on buying intention. However, religiosity (extrinsic and intrinsic) and halal literacy have significant relationships with most of the antecedents of the intention of the TPB. In addition, both kinds of religiosities (extrinsic and intrinsic) and halal literacy had a significant indirect effect (through TPB antecedents) on buying intention.

Muslim population in India is one of the largest in the world, yet there is a lack of popular halal branded food products in the market. Nevertheless, few researchers have attempted to study the consumer behaviour of the Muslim population for halal products in India. A large amount of research work on halal food behaviour is from countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where the Muslim population is in the majority and halal brands are already popular. Further, this paper studies the impact of dimensions of religiosity, which has been overlooked by researchers studying the halal food purchasing behaviour. The study also explores the impact of halal literacy, an understudied construct in halal marketing literature. The present study is amongst the earliest empirical research based on Muslim consumers in India on the topic of halal branded food products.

The purpose of this study is to develop an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model by adding religious commitment (RC) and self-efficacy as internal variables and investigating the effect of these variables on attitudes toward halal cosmetics. In addition, this study also examined the moderating role of halal literacy in the relationships between attitudes (ATT), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC) and intentions to purchase halal cosmetics.

The method of data collection used was self-administered surveys with customers in two stores in Karachi, Pakistan, yielding 267 valid questionnaires. To guarantee validity and reliability, convergent and discriminant validity analyses were conducted, and structural equation modeling was advanced to assess the relationships between variables using smart partial least squares 3.0 software. The interaction moderation technique has been used to examine the moderating effect of halal literacy on the purchase intention (PI) of halal cosmetics.

The results show that RC and self-efficacy both significantly impact the attitudes of Gen Y. Normative beliefs also had a significant relationship with SN. Further, ATT and SN had a significant relationship with PI of halal cosmetics, while PBC was nonsignificant. Furthermore, halal literacy is found to have a positive moderating influence on ATT and PI, and SN and PI. Finally, the moderating effect of halal literacy does not exist in the relationship between PBC and PI.

Participants’ characteristics should vary for future studies, and larger sample sizes may yield different results. It is critical for managers working in the cosmetic industry to monitor Muslim consumption patterns to develop strategies to reach Muslim consumers. This study reveals the effect of RC, self-efficacy and the moderating role of halal literacy on the behavioral attitudes of a booming market sector, which can guide marketing managers in developing more effective advertising campaigns.

This paper contributes to the halal consumption literature by exploring RC and self-efficacy as constructs for the very first time in the TPB model. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the influence of halal literacy on Gen Y Pakistani Muslim consumer behavioral intention toward halal cosmetic products using the TPB model. The paper offers an extended TPB model framework that may be of interest to scholars, marketers and policymakers.