Abstract:  Packaging always plays a "silent" salesperson role in the sales process of products, especially environmental friendly products, the customer's first impression of product packaging often determines the evaluations of the extent of the greenness of the products.  Based on theories of processing fluency, this research argues that environmental friendly products' packaging characteristics (color, material and with/without environmental claim) will influence consumer's green purchase in­tention.  This research presents three studies that supported the hypotheses and explore how environmental friendly products' packaging characteristics influence consumer's purchase intention, including the mediating role of perceived green value and the moderating role of consumer's environmental cognition.  The experimental results show that changing the packaging charac­teristics of environmental friendly products can make consumers perceive higher green value, improving their green purchase intention.  Specifically, green color is better than red color, fiber material is better than plastic, and with green claims is bet­ter than without green claims.  Meanwhile, the consumer's environmental cognition also plays a significant moderating role.  When the consumer's environmental cognition is high, the impact of these packaging characteristics will be more obvious, but when the consumer's environmental cognition is low, the impact will be relatively weak or even vanish.  The research conclu­sions provides managerial instructions for package strategy of environmental friendly products in green marketing practice.

Key words: packaging characteristics, green perceived value, green purchase intention, environmental cognition