Project Report On “Consumers’ perception regarding branded and unbranded grocery items”
PREFACE
A person learns to understand business from a realistic angle. With the help of major project an individual show the practices of business. I have done my project on the topic “ Consumers perception regarding branded and unbranded grocery items ”. In my research I studied firstly what is brand,
importance of brand for company & about the branded grocery items. Then I collected the data through questionnaire to know what consumer perceive about branded grocery. Do they accept the branded branded grocery items or the prefer to buy lose or unbranded grocery, in my research I also have tried to find out the factors that pushes a customer from unbranded to branded & also the factor that stop them top buy unbranded items. In today’s today’s world of cutthroat competition the theory theory “survival of the fittest” prevails. A comparison has to be made and weak points should be overcome in order to meet customer’s demand with more efficiency.
PREFACE
A person learns to understand business from a realistic angle. With the help of major project an individual show the practices of business. I have done my project on the topic “ Consumers perception regarding branded and unbranded grocery items ”. In my research I studied firstly what is brand,
importance of brand for company & about the branded grocery items. Then I collected the data through questionnaire to know what consumer perceive about branded grocery. Do they accept the branded branded grocery items or the prefer to buy lose or unbranded grocery, in my research I also have tried to find out the factors that pushes a customer from unbranded to branded & also the factor that stop them top buy unbranded items. In today’s today’s world of cutthroat competition the theory theory “survival of the fittest” prevails. A comparison has to be made and weak points should be overcome in order to meet customer’s demand with more efficiency.
STUDENT DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
A project report takes a lot of efforts and labor for its completion. It can never get completed without the toil. But in addition to, a lot of help is requiring from sources also. This project could never had completed without the endeav endeavors ors of my projec projectt guide, guide, Asst. His insi insigh ghtt and and Asst. Prof. Prof. Raman Raman Kumar Kumar. His valuable suggestions helped me in every phase of making of the project, be it data collec collectio tion, n, data data analys analysis is or represe representa ntatio tion n of the inform informati ation. on. I expres expresss deep deep gratitude to Asst. Prof. Raman Kumar. Besides, acknowledgements are also due to the the wort worthy hy dire direct ctor or of the the inst instit itut ute, e, Ashwani Under whose whose able able Ashwani Kansara Kansara Under leadership such projects reach the level of refinement and polishing that is required of them. During this project numerous other people helped me but mentioning those entire names, here is not possible. To all those unnamed helpers, I extend my heartiest thanks, as without their help this project would not have materialized.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapters
Title
Page no
Chapter 1
Introduction to the Study
1
Chapter 2
Objectives of the study
35
Chapter 3
Research
37
Chapter 4
Limitation of the study
41
Chapter 5
Data analysis and
43
Chapter 6
interpretation Conclusion &
60
Recommendations Bibliography Annexure
CHAPTER-1
1
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
The packaged food industry is probably one of the most promising emerging markets in India today. Gone are the days when wheat was sent to the local ‘chakki’ to be milled into flour or mustard oil grinded at the local ‘kolu’s’. People today have become extremely conscious and are willing to pay the extra rupees in order to ensure that quality product enter their kitchens. There has been a complete overhaul of lifestyle and traditional systems in the last decade or so with the emergence and growth of nuclear families. Meals are no more a family ‘event’ but have been relegated to a mundane routine. People are hard-pressed for time and are constantly in need of that magic something will save them an additional minute without compromising on nourishment. This must-hallowed gap has been effectively filled by the packaged foods industry. Starting from instant noodles and soup, packaged rice and flour and on to frozen peas and meat all of which is contently located under the roof of the local supermarket. Branded and packaged foods fill this gap not by saving only by saving time for the consumer but also ensure quality and consistency. The local supermarket too has come a long way. Today they door of urban India by the hundreds. Associated distractions notwithstanding, the supermarket has emerged as the one-stop shopping solution for families, 2
Where all domiciles necessarily rub shoulders within each other at prices that are competitive and more often than not even lower than the local ‘karyana’ store. Through trial and error, intelligent consumers have realized how very beneficial these ‘alternatives’ are. From salt to noodles, peas to chicken, every thing is available today treated, processed and hygienically packaged untouched by hand. Consumers have started preferring them in spite of the fact that they are offered at a premium i.e. priced slightly higher than what they would get at the local sabzi mandi or butcher hop unbranded (and relatively more unclean). Companies efforts have been aimed further ease the consumer’s shopping experience and at the same time giving them total value for money. So in my research I have selected this topic the ‘study of consumer perception about branded and unbranded items’. In this project I find the consumer liking disliking their way of thinking & their way of adopting the thing. I studied what are the various factors that perceive are important while purchasing and where the branded & unbranded grocery to them.
3
The meaning of brands
Brands are a means of differentiating a company’s products and services
from those of its competitors. There is plenty of evidence to prove that customers will pay a substantial price premium for a good brand and remain loyal to that brand. It is
important, therefore, to understand what brands are and why they are important. MacDonald sums this up nicely in the following quote emphasizing the importance of brands:
“…It is not factories that make profits, but relationships with customers, and it is company and brand names which secure those relationships”
Businesses that invest in and sustain leading brands prosper whereas those that fail are left to fight for the lower profits available in commodity mark.
4
What is a Brand?
One definition of a brand is as follows:
“A name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, that is intended to identify the goods and services of one business or group of businesses and to differentiate them from those of competitors ”.
Inter brand - a leading branding consultancy - defines a brand in this way:
“A mixture of tangible and intangible attributes symbolized in a trademark, which, if properly managed, creates influence and generates value”
Manufacturers can use their own brands (known as manufacturer’ brand) a brands of their distributor (distributor brands). Manufacturer/distributor use brand names for a verity of reasons from simple identification purposes to having legal Protection for unique features of the products from imitations and help consumers recognizes certain quality parameters. In some cases, brands are just used to endow the product with unique story and character which itself can be a basis for product differentiation.
5
How a brand is created
Grocery companies spend enormous sum on building brand equity by way of 1- Advertisements/publicity
2- Free samples
3- Low entry price
4- Promotions
Advertisements/publicity
Advertisement and promotion can induce trials but for sustained loyalty, the manufacturer has to offer superior quality and value of money. Most successful brands are founded on chance discovery of a new product/ process or assiduous research and development work. Major players invest in R&D on their exiting brands and improve the product quality continuously to maintain their edge over competitors. Advertising is paid communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. Variations include publicity, public relations, product
placement,
sponsorship,
promotion. 6
underwriting,
and
sales
Every major medium is used to deliver these messages: Television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the internet, and billboards. Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on the walls of an airport walkway, and the sides of buses, or heard in telephone hold messages or in-store PA systems – nearly anywhere a visual or audible communication can be placed. Advertising clients are predominantly, but not exclusively, for-profit corporations seeking to increase demand for their products or services . Low entry price
Establishing a relatively low price for a product or service, usually to stimulate demand and acquire market share. This makes the most economic sense for the seller when there are significant economies of scale achievable from high volume production, or when the buyers are price sensitive and the seller has few competitive advantages Free samples
A free sample is a portion of food or other product which is given out in shopping malls, grocery stores, and other venues. Sometimes samples of non-perishable items are included in direct marketing mailings.
7
The purpose of a free sample is to acquaint the consumer with a new product. The concept of a free sample is not unlike that of a test drive, in that a customer is able to try out a product before purchasing it. There are lots of free samples online. Often, people will create forums to share free samples they find, such as the Slick Deals Establishing a relatively low price for a product or service, usually to stimulate demand and acquire market share. This makes the most economic sense for the seller when there are significant economies of scale achievable from high volume production, or when the buyers are price sensitive and the seller has few competitive advantages
Promotion
Single element of an advertising campaign. A promotion might be a shortterm price reduction, contest or sweepstakes, package giveaway, or free sample offer. A promotion might also be a single mailing within a direct mail campaign or series of advertisements that make up part of an ongoing print advertising campaign. The Milk Advisory Board has employed celebrities with milk mustaches in a series of magazine ads. These "Got Milk?" print ads are a promotion within an overall campaign to increase milk consumption.
8
Promotional Objectives
There are a number of promotional objectives, some of the most common being information dissemination, product demand, product differentiation, product highlights, and sales stabilization. Regardless of the promotional objective selected, the company's goal is to inform and convince consumers to buy the product.
9
Brand value to consumers Brands, in fact, influence consumer behavior in a number
1. Reassurance: A brand is stamp of authenticity. It adds value by promising
‘reliability’ and help to establish repeat purchase patterns. In a foreign country, people seek the reassurance of familiar brands, even though they are presumably traveling to find new experiences.
2. Value expression: We choose brands that reflect the individual values that
we possess as individual. We do this to communicate the desire singles in the highly social environment we inhabit.
3. Usage: A strong brand increases a consumer’s usage and spends over
time, either within a category or as abridge into other categories. It has been successful in every category, because the perception has been the same-“consistent valve delivery to the same”.
4. Brand switch: in FMCG markets, experimenting less with competition
means that the brand achieve larger proportion of the category spend by the consumer. For example, maggi soup is always bought by the consumer, and is not being substituted by other soup brands.
10
BRANDS - BUILDING A BRAND What factors are important in building brand value?
Professor David Jobber identifies seven main factors in building successful brands,
as
illustrated
in
the
diagram
below:
11
1. Quality : Quality is a vital ingredient of a good brand. Remember the “core
benefits” – the things consumers expect. These must be delivered well,
consistently. The branded washing machine that leaks, or the training shoe that often falls apart when wet will never develop brand equity. Research confirms that, statistically, higher quality brands achieve a higher market shares and higher profitability that there inferior competitors.
2. Positioning: Positioning is about the position a brand occupies in a
market in the minds of consumers. Strong brands have a clear, often unique position in the target market. Positioning can be achieved through several means, including brand name, image, service standards, product guarantees, packaging and the way in which it is delivered. In fact, successful positioning usually requires a combination of these things.
3. Repositioning: Repositioning occurs when a brand tries to change its
market position to reflect a change in consumer’s tastes. This is often required when a brand has become tired, perhaps because its original market has matured or has gone into decline. The repositioning of the Lucozade brand from a sweet drink for children to a leading sports drink is one example. Another would be the changing style of entertainers with aboveaverage longevity such as Kylie Minogue and Cliff Richard.
12 4. Communication: Communications also play a key role in building a
successful brand. We suggested that brand positioning is essentially about
Customer perceptions – with the objective to build a clearly defined position in the minds of the target audience. All elements of the promotional mix need to be used to develop and sustain customer perceptions.
5. First-mover advantage: Business strategists often talk about first-mover
advantage. In terms of brand development, by “first-mover” they mean that it is possible for the first successful brand in a market to create a clear positioning in the minds of target customers before the competition enters the market. There is plenty of evidence to support this. Think of some leading consumer product brands like Gillette, Coca Cola and Sell tape that, in many ways, defined the markets they operate in and continue to lead. However, being first into a market does not necessarily guarantee long-term success. Competitors – drawn to the high growth and profit potential demonstrated by the “market-mover” – will enter the market and copy the best elements of the leader’s brand (a good example is the way that Body Shop developed the “ethical” personal care market but were soon facing stiff competition from the major high street cosmetics retailers. 6. Long-term perspective: This leads onto another important factor in brand
building: the need to invest in the brand over the long-term. Building customer awareness, communicating the brand’s message and creating customer loyalty takes time. This means that management must “invest” in a brand, perhaps at the expense of short-term profitability.
13 7. Internal marketing: Finally, management should ensure that the brand is
marketed “internally” as well as externally. By this we mean that the whole business should understand the brand values and positioning. This is particularly important in service businesses where a critical part of the brand value is the type and quality of service that a customer receives. Think of the brands that you value in the restaurant, hotel and retail sectors. It is likely that your favorite brands invest heavily in staff training so that the face-toface contact that you have with the brand helps secure your loyalty.
14
Understanding what is brand equity
Over 21,000 new products were introduced in 2004 alone yet history tells us that better than 90% of them won’t be on the shelf a year later. Why such a high failure rate and why this been a historical trend. The development of a successful product-, which includes the product, the package, the product name and identity, is a challenging. But not insurmountable task. The like hood for success can be greatly enhanced if one focuses on certain critical issues. Clear product definition and proper execution and implantation that definition can lead to success and longevity in the market. Through the 1980’s and 90’s there has been a growing corporate on increasing shareholder value. Typical heading-grabbing story of these decades have included waves of layoffs, corporate restructuring and an emphasis on operating efficiencies. One solution is to grow the brand. This serves to build consumer and investor confidence in and loyalty to the company. A strong brand acts as a promise, leading faithful customers to pay a premium over competitive products. Like wise the stock of highly reputed companies’ trade at premiums to other in their respective industries. The most important assets of any business are intangible: the company name, brand, symbols, and slogans, and their underlying associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer base, and proprietary resources such as patents, trademarks and channel relationship
15 These assets, which comprise brands equity, are primary sources of competitive advances and future earning. Yet, research show that manager cannot identify with confidence their brand association, level of consumer awareness, or degree of customer loyalty. Moreover, in the last decade manager desperate for short-term financial result have often unwittingly damaged their brands through Price promotions and un wise brand extensions, causing irreversible deterioration of the value of the brand name. Although several companies, such as Hindustan Lever Limited and other companies have recently create an equity management position to be guardian of the value of the brand names, far too few manager really understand the concept of brand equity and how it must be implemented.
In a fascinating and unsightly examination of the phenomenon of brand equity, it is extremely important to know how to avoid the temptation to place short-term performance before the health of the brand and instead, to manage brands strategically creating, developing and exploiting each of the assets in turn, likewise companies can increase their new product’s chances an d maximize the potential rewards, by understanding what their target market desires. For instance, it’s tempting to short-cut market research and rich a product idea to market.
16 Large sum of money become invested in the process. Even if poor consumers result occur, companies may continue on when they should postpone or cancel the launch.
Companies must first listen to the voice of the consumer is a critical one to hear but one that many firms have difficult in translating into products. Many companies hear the words spoken by the consumers and work hard to deliver on them but, as is often the case, what is says is actually meant (by the consumer) may be very, very different.
17
Branding and Brand Equity
In today’s environment, building strong brands establishing brand equity is becoming more and more challenging. Increased pressure to complete on price, increased competition through product introductions and store brands, and the fragmentation of advertising and market segments are just a sample of the pressure being faced by companies in today’s highly competitive environment.
What is Brand Equity? “Brand equity” refers to the value of a brand. Brand equity is based
on the extent to which the brand has high brand loyalty, name awareness, perceived quality and strong product associations. Brand equity also includes other “intangible” assets such as patents, trademarks and channel relationships.
There are different definitions of brand equity, but they do have several factors in common:
18 : These are as follows
Monetary Value: The amount of additional income expected from a branded
product over and above what might be expected from an identical, but unbranded product. For example, grocery stores frequently sell unbranded versions of name brand product. The same companies produce the branded and unbranded product, but they carry a generic brand or store brand label like Hawkins. Store brands sell for significantly less than brand counterparts, even when the contents are identical. This differential is the monetary value of the brand name.
Intangible: The intangible value association with a product that cannot be
accounted for by price or features. Pepsi and coke have created many intangible benefits for its product by associating them with film stars. Children and adult want to consumer their product to feel some association with this star. It is not the ingredients or the features that drive demand for their products, but the marketing image that has been create. Buyers are willing to pay extremely high price premium over lesser-known brands, which may offer the same or better, product quality and features.
Perceived Quality: The overall perception of quality and image attributed to
a product, independent of its physical features. Mercedes and BMW have established their brand names as synonymous with high- quality, luxurious automobiles. Years of marketing, image building and quality manufacturing have lead to perceive Mercedes and BMW as providing superior quality to other brand name automobiles even when such a perception is unwarranted.
19 In short, brand equity is asset of assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name, and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provide by the product or service to a firm and/or that of firm’s customers.
The overall description of brand equity incorporates the ability to provided added value to your company’s product and service. This added value can be used to your company’s advantage to charge price premium. Lower marketing cost and offer greater opportunities fir customer purchase. A badly mismanage brand can actually have negative brand equity, meaning that potential customers have such low perception of the brand that they prescribe less value to the product than they would if they objectively assessed all its attributes/features.
One of the examples of brand equity is in the soft drink industry. Without a brand name and all of the marketing dollars that have gone into, coca-cola would be nothing more than flavored water. Due to the company’s long-term marketing efforts and protection, enhancement and nurturing of their brand name, coke is one of the most recognizable brands the world. This includes lost sales, lost marketing dollars and lost promotions, additional marketing costs to promote a new brand, and significantly lower awareness and trial rates forms their new brand.
20
BRANDING PROMOTIONS
Developing a promotion as a brand can provide a powerful tool for building
Additional brand awareness and positive associations. An excellent method to achieve this is through linking the promotion to the actual brand. For example, consider a promotion to win a trip to Disney world for a product with no link to Disney world or travel. The contest participants will most likely forget except the actual product associated with the prize.
Compare this with a company’s brand promotion that directly on the association of the product thus power of the brand. A promotion such as this affects non-participants as well as those inv loved, creating a platform to be built on each year. Furthermore developing a tight link between and the brand avoids the possibility of promoting other brands. In effect, it is recommended to brand a promotion so that it cannot a linked to anther brands.
21
BRANDING IN GROCERY
Historically, traditional food items were the domain of small local players. Grocery item earlier were sold loose and unbranded. Then some progressive traders started the cleaning, grading and primary packaging. And the next stage of development was branding so primary food such as Atta (wheat flour). But those were mainly regional brands. Popular among these were “rose” and Shakti bog” brands in northern India. Whereas in traditional food items such as spice vand pickles there were host of local brands with regional strong-holds such as spice power in east “Bedkar” pickles in west, MDH-Masala in north east. The food ingredient-nobody though of only food ingredients that was there tomato purees and paste in cans which in the recent times godrej introduced in tetra pack. Edible oil in tin pack and later on in polyester jar and tetra pack were the first major step in branding grocery item. Today we get Varity of edible oils and Marco are the leading players in this sector. Amongst MNC’s we have corn oil from COC and “Sun drop” from ITC agro—a sunflower oil which subsequently has been acquired by CONAGRA- the fastest growing food company in American. The next major attempt to market a branded grocery item was done about a decade ago by Tatas by introducing the first refined iodized salt in poly bag by brand name “Tata Salt” and that was a success.
22 The next big brand in this category is “Captain Cook” from DCW chemicals that had plans in branded grocery items and thus the company introduced other items including wheat flour under the same brand name. But that was short lived.
During 1997 DCW chemical s suffered a major setback and the company decides to divest this food business. The acquirer is Corn Product Co. (India) Ltd-a wholly
Owned subsidiary of CPC-international a nine billion US dollar American multinational in food and grocery business. The company recently changed its name to Best Food ltd. CPC was a sleepy company operating in India for over fifty years and their performance was lackluster. With their limited range of Rex and brown and Polson brands of convenience foods globally did not have any commitment in India? In late seventies and early eighties when I was heading their project department many investment proposal were send and notably among those were dextrose manufacturing project as CPC has a flavored glucose brand in the portfolio and known soup project.
The third brand of salt is “Kissan Annapurna” which is making a sustained effort to get market share. This brand which is now in Hindustan level fold through brook bond acquisition who in turn acquired Kissan in early nineties have reportedly spend Rs18 Crores in advertising and got 14% market share in a Rs200 Crores branded salt category in a span of one year. Tata salt still holds 26% market share and Captain Cook share is about 20% and balance 40% is still with the small players.
23 With the acquisition of “Captain Cook” in branded salt market MNCs are the dominant players controlling 60% of the market.
The value addition in branded salt and pepper was really done successful by a Delhi based local company hi tech Foods belonging to Dharampal Satayapal of premium “Baba zarda” fame. Hi-tech Foods catch brand of salt and pepper in dispenser pack is a success story with upper middle class household and restaurant segments as the main customers. The first MNC to get into the branded spice business was Brook Bond who introduced the select premium priced spice range by name “Sona” in late eighties. The products were priced and packaged for higher income group. They struggled for couple of years to establish “Sona” brand but failed and were forced to withdraw in later years.
The first MNC to introduce Indian pickles was Nestlé with their Maggie brand. The products are still in the market. And as mentioned earlier, the MNC to introduce traditional snacks is Pepsi under the umbrella of “Leher namkins”. It can be concluded that in traditional Indian foods MNCs cannot add much value through the involvement of their principle aboard .on the contrary, they will have to learn from the locals to derive advantage of their brand and resource muscle.
Hindustan Level is expected to enter branded grocery items though Kissan rough in a big way. The company does significant export of branded rice particular in Middle East market and therefore expected to introduce the branded rice shortly in domestic market as well.
24
Otherwise, in India so far branded package rice is limited to Basmati rice and there are many brands in this category and leading among them is “KOHINOOR” – but all are from small manufacturers. The grocery business is basically low margins and high volume business and thus it required multiple supply sources to be strategically located to reduce he cost of friend and excellent distribution infrastructure and logistics management capability.
Price and quality are expected to be the major determinate in the success of grocery items and basic foods. Consumers in India would not be willing to pay much as the price of convenience.
25
CONSUMER PERCEPTION
Perception can be describe as “how we see the world around us.” Two individual may be subject to the same stimuli under apparels the same condition, but how they recognize them, select them, organize them, and interpret them is a highly individual process based on each person’s one needs, values and expectations. The influence that each of these variables has on the perceptual process, and its relevance to marketing.
DEFINATION
“Perception is defined as the process by which an individual selects, organized and interpret stimuli into a meaning full & coherent picture of the world. A stimulus is any unit of input to many of the senses. Examples of stimuli include products, packages, and brand names, advertising and commercial. Sensory receptors are the human organ that receives sensory inputs. All of these functions are called into play- either single or in combination-evaluation and use of most consumer products. The study of perception is largely the study of what we subconsciously add to or subtract from raw sensory input to produce our own private picture of the world.
26
PERCEPTUAL SELECT Consumers subconsciously exercise a great deal of selective as to which aspect of the environment-which stimuli-they perceive. An individual may look at some things, ignore others and turn away from still others. In total, people actually receiver perceive only a small fraction to the stimuli to which they are expose Nature of stimulus: marketing stimuli include an enormous number of
variables that affect the consumer’s perception such as the nature of the product, its physical attributes, the packages design, the brand name, the advertisement and commercial, the position of a print ad or the time of a commercial and the editorial environment.
Contrast: - contrast is one of the most attention- compelling attributes
of a stimulus. Advertiser often uses extremely attention getting device to achieve maximum, contrast and thus penetrate the consumer perceptual screen.
Expectations: - People usually see what they expect to see and what they
expect to see is usually based on familiarity previous experience or preconditioned set in marketing context people tend to perceive product and product attributes according in their own expectation.
27
Motives: - People tend to perceive thing they need or want the stronger
the need the greater the tendency to ignore unrelated stimuli in the environment. An individual perceptual process simply attunes itself more closely to those elements of the environment that are important to that person.
Important selective perception concepts: As the preceding discussion
illustrates, the consumer’s “Selection” of stimuli from the environment is based on the interaction of expectation and motives wit the stimuli itself. These factors giver rise to a number of important concepts concerning perceptions.
SELECTIVE EXPOSURE: Consumers actively seek out messages
they find pleasant or with which they are sympathetic and actively avoid painful threatening ones. Consumers also selectively expose themselves to advertisement that reassures them of the wisdom of their purchase decision.
SELECTIVE ATTENTION: Consumers have a heightened awareness
of the stimuli that meet their need or interest and an owner awareness of stimuli irrelevant to needs.
28
PERCEPTUAL DEFENSE: consumers subconsciously screen out
stimuli that are important to for them not to see even though exposure has already taken place. Thus threatening or otherwise damaging stimuli are less to be consciously perceived than are neutral stimuli at the same level of exposure.
PERCEPTUAL BLOCKING: Consumers protect themselves from
being bombarded with stimuli by simply” tuning out”- blocking such stimuli from conscious awareness. This perceptual blocking –out is somewhat to the mechanical “zapping” of commercial using remote controls.
29
CONSUMER DECISION MAKING AND BUYING PROCESS
Marketing have go beyond the various influences on buyers and develop an understanding of how consumers actual make their buying decisions. Mainly the buyer plays these roles in buying decisions:
Initiator: a person who first suggests the idea of buying the product or
service.
Influencer: a person whose view or advice influences the decision.
Decider: a person who decide on any component of a buying decision.
Buyer: the person who makes the actual purchase.
User: a person who consumers or uses the product or service.
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Decision Making Process
Need Recognition: The buying process starts when the buyer
recognizes a problem or need. The need can be triggered by internal or external stimuli. In the former case, one of the person normal needs – hunger, thirst and sex- rise to a threshold level and become a drive. In the relative case, a need is roused by an external stimulus.
Marketers need to identify the circumstances that trigger a particular need. By gathering information from a number of consumers, marketers can identify the most `frequent stimuli that spark and interested in a product category. They can develop marketing strategies that trigger consumer’s interest.
Information search: An aroused consumer will be inclined to search for
more information. We can distinguish between two levels of arousal. The milder search state is called heightened attention. At this level a person simply becomes more receptive to information about a product. At the next level, the person may enter active information search: looking for reading material, phoning friend and visiting stores to about the product. Consumer information sources fall into four groups •
Personal sources: family, friends, neighbors
•
Commercial
sources:
advertising,
salespersons,
dealers,
packaging 31 •
Public sources: mass media, consumers-rating organizations
•
Experimental sources: handling, examining, using the product
Each information source performs a different function in influencing the buying decision. Through gathering information, the consumer learns about competing brands and their features. Evaluation of alternatives : There is no single evaluation process used
by all consumers or by one consumer in all buying situation. There are several decision evaluation processes, the most current models of which see the process as cognitively oriented. Some basic concepts will help us understand consumer evaluation processes.
•
First, the consumer is trying to satisfy a need.
•
Second, the consumer is looking for certain benefits from the product solution.
•
Third, the consumers see each product as a bundle of attributes with varying abilities of delivering the benefits sought to satisfy this need. Consumers vary as to which product attributes they see as most relevant and the importance they attach to each attribute. They will pay the most attention to attributes that deliver the sought benefits the market for a product can often be segmented according to attributes that are silent to different consumer group. 32 Purchase Decision: in evaluation stage, the consumer forms
preferences among the brands in the choice set. The
consumer \may also forms an intention to buy most preferred brand. However, two factors can intervene between the purchase intentions and the purchase decision. The first factor is the attitude of the others. The second, factor is unanticipated paituationalfactor that may erupt to change the purchase intention.
A consumer’s decision to modify, postpone or avoid a purchase decision is heavily influenced by perceptive risks. The amount of perceived risk varies with amount of money at stake, the amount attribute uncertainty and amount of consumer selfconfidence.
Post purchase behavior: after purchasing the product the
consumer will experience some level of satisfaction ort dissatisfaction. The3 marketers job does not end when the product is bought marketers must monitor post purchase satisfaction; post purchase action and post purchase product users.
33
CONSUMER DECISION MAKING AND BUYING PROCESS
Need Recognition
Information Search
Cultural, Social, Individual and Psychological
Evaluation of Alternatives
Purchase
Post purchase Behavior
CHAPTER-2
Objective of the study
35
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1. To check the awareness level of consumers regarding branded grocery items.
2. To study the perception of consumer about the packaged and brands grocery items.
3. To know the place from where customer purchase branded items.
4.
To know about the factor affecting a customer’s choice of branded /unbranded items.
5. To know whether is there is impact of income level on the sale of branded unbranded grocery items.
36
Chapter –3
37
RESEACH METHODOLOGY
Research Methodology is ways to systematically solve the problem.
The Research Methodology includes the various methods and techniques for conducing a Research.” Marketing Research is the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data and finding relevant solution to a specific marketing situation or problem”. D.Slesinger and M. Stephenson in the encyclopedia of social sciences define Research as “the manipulation of things, concept or symbols for the purpose of generalizing to extend, correct or verify knowledge, whether that aids in construction of theory or in the practice of an art.”
Research is, thus an original contribution to the existing stock of
knowledge making for its advancement. The purpose of research is to disco0ver answer to the question through the application of scientific procedures. Our project has specified framework for collecting data in an effective manner. Such framework is called” RESEARCH Methodology”. The research process followed by me consists of following steps:
o
Defining the problem and research objective: it is said, “ A problem well defined is half solved”. The step is to define the
problem under study and deciding the research objective. The objective of my research is to know the consumer perception towards
unbranded & branded grocery items. 38
o
Development the research plan: the second of this study consists of
developing the most efficient plan for gathering data.
o
Sampling plan- A sample plan is a definite plan for obtaining a
sample from a given population. It refers to the technique or the procedure the researcher would adopt in selecting sample items for the sample. Sample plan may as well lay down the number of items to be included in the sample. i.e., the size of the sample. The plan helps in decision making in the following areas.
Universe: All customers of branded and unbranded grocery items
constitute the universe.
Sample size: this refers to the number of items to be selected from the
universe to constitute a sample. The size of sample should neither be excessively large, nor too small, it should be optimum. The sample size for my study is -100.
Sampling procedure: It is a way through which sampling is done.
There are various procedures like random, systematic etc. The sampling procedure for my study is convenience sampling.
Research design: Descriptive in nature.
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Data collection: information will be collected from both primary and
secondary data.
Primary sources: Primary data are those which are collected afresh
and for the first time. I have collected primary data by conducting survey through Questionnaire, which includes both open ended and close-ended Questions. Secondary sources: Secondary data are those which already been
collected by someone else and which already had been passed through the statistical process. I have collected secondary data has been collected through Magazines, Web sites, and Newspaper.
Analysis of data and interpretations:
After collection of date the analysis of data has been done through various statistical tools and techniques. The analysis of data required a number
of closely related operations such as
establishment of category, the application of these categories to raw data through coding, tabulation and then drawing statistical inferences.
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Chapter-4
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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
1. Due to constraints of time & financial resources, the scope of study is limited to few customer of Jalandhar only.
2. Smaller sample may not always give better results. Sample may not be true representative of the whole population.
3. The possibility of biased responses is ruled out.
4. Lack of availability of full information.
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