Mohit Sewak

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The Changing Consumer Perception

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India is poised to become a major Auto hub in the near future. Indian car industry is changing rapidly, so is the mindset of Indian Consumers. We, at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, took an initiative to find out that whether the changing ground realities have also changed the India Auto Consumer’s mindset vis-a-vis their perception of the abilities of various Indian and foreign Auto manufacture to deliver the much sought after attributes in a car.

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We deliberately, instead of taking individual cars, took BRANDS (as we wanted to analyse the brand perception mapping), and let the consumer decide which brand will he buy (Note: It is important to note that in some cases, though a consumer may covet a brand highly e.g. BMW, but might not intend buying it due to many reasons. So we specifically framed question to analyse the purchase intention), and the attributes for which he will go for that particular brand.

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It was surprising to find the changing perception of the consumer towards TATA, especially after it being the proud owner of Jaguar and LR on one hand, and the maker of the worlds smallest, and the most economical economical (& affordable) car Nano on the other.

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There were many more surprising results as well, have a look…

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The Result (Survey Dated 8th Decemper, 2009)

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Attribute Mileage:

Highest: MARUTI- Car people would like to buy the most for its fuel efficiency (eg. NANO).

LOWEST: FORD- Car people are least like to buy it were for its fuel efficiency (mileage).

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Attribute Safety:

Highest: TATA- Car people would like to buy the most for its Safety preparedness.

LOWEST: FORD- Car people are least like to buy it were for its Safety preparedness.

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Attribute Cost:

Highest: TATA- Car people would like to buy the most for its cost effectiveness (eg. NANO).

LOWEST: FORD- Car people are least like to buy it were for its cost (value for money).

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Attribute Comfort:

Highest: FORD- Car people would like to buy the most for its Comfort (e.g. Jaguar).

LOWEST: MARUTI- Car people are least like to buy it were for its Comfort.

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Attribute After Sales Service (Maintenance cost, frequency and accessibility):

Highest: MARUTI- Car people would like to buy the most for its After Sales Service.

LOWEST: TATA- Car people are least like to buy it were for its After Sales Service.

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The Process

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Cars Analyzed

(Survey Question: Which Brand of car will you choose?)

1. Tata
2. Honda
3. Maruti
4. Ford
5. Hyundai

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Attributes Surveyed

(Survey Question: What factor motivates you to buy this brand?)

1. Comfort
2. Safety
3. Mileage
4. Cost (Price)
5. After Sales Service

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Respondents

Number: 114

Age Group: 24 to 35

Education: Graduation and above

Profession: Management Students

Ethnicity: Indians- Representing all states of India

Social Class: Middle class and above

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Analysis Carried Out

Statistical Tool: Correspondence Analysis

Mapping Dimensions: 2

Test: Chi Square

Test Value: 73.897

Test Significance: 0.000

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Available Downloads:

SPSS Output File For the Data Analysis

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Factors affecting Impulse Buying in a Retail Store

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The article “The Interplay Among Category Characteristics, Customer Characteristics, and Customer Activities on In-Store Decision Making” by J. Jeffrey Inman, Russell S. Winer, & Rosellina Ferraro, gives some intuitive insights about the effect of various factors on the unplanned behavior of the consumer.

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It proves that where factors like effect of display, inter purchase cycle and category Hedonicity, gender of the consumer, household size, store familiarity, number of aisles being shopped at, amount of time spent in the store, paying by check or by credit card instead of cash increases the unplanned behavior of the consumer, factors like use of shopping coupon, use of list, and greater shopping frequency, reduces the unplanned shopping behavior of the consumer.

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The study has significant learning lessons for both the customers and for the managers. Where customers can avoid all such steps that increases his unplanned shopping tendency, the manager has to be more creative and innovative in terms of store/ aisle design, and planning his marketing and sales activities to further enhance the customers unplanned shopping behavior at his store.

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The study also gives a very interesting insight that the consumer’s unplanned buying behavior is not affected by his being accompanied by anyone.  Here we think that measuring the age of the companion would have been very handy. Because we think that although while accompanied by an companion should decrease the tendency of  unplanned purchase, owing to rational decision making with the discussion with the companion, or due to fear of social shame arising out of unplanned purchase. Also we think that while accompanied by children, the tendency of unplanned purchase must increase due to pester effect, especially for hedonic category products (positive interaction effect). But as the age of the companion has not been taken into consideration, any effect because of it might have been averaged out, and hence the significance of being accompanied by someone id low in the result.

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Also the negative interaction between display and category hedonicity is an interesting finding, but we think other explanations for the phenomenon are possible than the one given.

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Overall, despite the limitation of being constrained to the data given in the POPAI data set, the finding is very useful as it goes a long way in educating the consumer how to safeguard them against the tendency of impulse buying.

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