Trust, Attitude and Financial Literacy in BNPL Adoption for Consumer Durables: Cross-Sectional Evidence from Uttarakhand

Abstract

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) remains under-examined for high-involvement consumer durables and for non-metropolitan Indian markets. This study examines how four antecedents, perceived affordability, ease of use, social influence and perceived risk, relate to consumer trust in BNPL, and how trust relates in sequence to attitude, adoption intention and the BNPL-enabled purchase decision, with financial literacy and demographics tested as boundary conditions. A cross-sectional survey of 420 consumers across five Uttarakhand study locations used non-probability purposive sampling with location-based quotas. Nine constructs were measured by 37 five-point Likert items. Analysis used reliability estimation, exploratory factor analysis, correlation, ordinary least squares regression, hierarchical moderated regression, ANOVA and nonparametric bootstrap estimation of indirect effects (5,000 resamples). No latent-variable structural equation model was estimated. The reliability, factor-structure and discriminant-validity diagnostics were satisfactory (α = .867–.916, nine-factor structure explaining 67.8% of variance, maximum HTMT = .656). All four antecedents were significantly associated with trust, jointly explaining 37.1% of its variance, affordability was strongest (β = .468) and risk the only negative association (β = −.303), both p < .001. Trust was significantly associated with attitude (β = .414), attitude with intention (β = .580), and intention with the purchase decision (β = .511). All specified statistical indirect effects were significant, and each direct effect with a significant total association became non-significant once intervening variables were entered, supporting H1–H7. Financial literacy showed no main-effect association with any construct. H8a was nominally significant (p = .033) but failed the Bonferroni-adjusted threshold of .0125 and is treated as tentative rather than supported. H8b–H8d, H8 overall and H9 were not supported. The study tests a four-stage sequential specification for a high-involvement category in a non-metropolitan Indian state and reports in full the financial-literacy and demographic moderation nulls this literature more often assumes than tests.