CHAPTER – 1

Introduction
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Meaning

The consumer market consists of all the individuals and households who

buy or acquire goods and services for personal consumption. Consumers vary

tremendously in age, come, educational level mobility patterns and taste.

Marketers find it useful to distinguish different consumer groups and to develop

products and services tailored to their needs.

Consumer behavior refers that consumers display in searching for

purchasing using evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they

expect will satisfy their needs.

The study of consumer behaviour is the study of how individual make

decisions to spend their available resource (time money effect) on consumption

related items. It included the study of what they buy, why they buy, how they use

it.

Definition of Buyer Behaviour

The term consumer can be defined as the behaviour that consumer

display in searching for purchasing, using evaluating and disposing of products,

services and ideas, which they expect will satisfy their needs.

Walters and Paul say that, “ buyer behaviour is the process where by

individuals decide what, when, where how and from whom purchase goods and

services”
 Sherlakar defines buyer behaviour as, all psychological, social and

physical behaviour of potential consumers as they evaluate purchase, and tell

after about product and services.

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The aim of marketing is to meet and satisfy target

Customer’s needs and wants. But “ knowing customers” is never simple.

Customers may state their needs and wants but act otherwise. They may not be

in touch with their deeper motivations. They may respond to influences that

change their mind at the last minute.

Nevertheless, marketer must study their target customer’s wants,

perceptions, preferences, and shopping and buying behaviors. Such study will

provide clues for developing new products, product featured, prices, channels,

messages and other marketing – mix elements. This project will explore the

buying dynamics of consumers, and will explore the buying dynamics of business

buyers.

The consumer markets buy goods and services for personal consumption.

It is the ultimate market for which economic activities are organized, in analyzing

a consumer market, one need to know the occupants, the objects, and the

buyer’s objectives, organization, operation, occasions and outlets.

Types of buying behaviour

Complex Buying Behaviour

Consumer comes under this category when they are highly involved in a

purchase and aware of significant difference existing among brands.

II) Dissonance – Reducing Buyer Behaviour

purchase, but seeks little difference in brands.

III Variety Seeking Buying Behaviour

Consumer under this category when they are less involved in purchase, but

seeks significant brand difference.

IV habitual Buying Behaviour

Under this the consumer has neither involvement nor brand difference in the

product

Buyer Motives

Buying motives are defined as, “ those influences or considerations which

provide the impulse to buy, induce action or determine choice in the purchase of

goods and services. “

Decision Making of Adoption Process

This process consists of a process or steps beginning with a fest need or

want arising from either, internal external services and termination with a

confirmation or decision. The need any be an urgenting or compelling one,

demanding immediate satisfaction, or it may be one for which the satisfaction can

be delayed or postponed.

According to Saibert, there are five recognized steps or stages \

1. Pre – decision stage ( External influences)

2. Decision stage ( internal influences)

3. Post – decision stage ( Buying or not buying the product again)

This process consists of four stages

I) Problem Recognition

The buying process starts with the buyer’s recognizing a problem or

need. The buyer senses a difference between his or her actual state and desired

state. The marketer should research consumers to find out what kinds of fely

needs or problems arouse, what brought them about, and how they led to this

particular product.

II) Identification of Alternatives

The consumer should know that different alternatives and products are

available so that the needs could be satisfied in a better way.

III Evaluation of Alternative

Having identified the various alternatives, the consumer must each

alternative. His past experience and his attitudes towards various brands or

opinion at the members of his family would enable him to evaluate the various

alternatives.

IV) Purchase Decision

At this stage consumer should decide whether the product will satisfy his

or her needs. For this he will consider the product type, brand, price, quality or

colour

V Post – Purchase Behaviour

Buyer’s feelings and evaluation after the sales are significant for the

marketing management because they can influence repeat sales and also

influence what the buyer tells others about the product of brand.
Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

It is important for s marketer to understand all these variables so as to

know why consumer behaves in manners he/she does and how he is influenced.

One of the best ways to get an explanation of this behaviour is to study the

various factors influencing consumer behaviour.

Cultural Factors

The broadest and deepest influence on consumer behaviour is cultural

factors such as buyer’s culture, sub-culture and social class identification. Social

classes show distinct product and preferences in such areas as clothing, home

furnishing, leisure activities and automobiles.

Social Factors

Consumer’s behaviour is also influenced by social factors such as

consumer’s reference groups, family and social roles and statuses. A person’s

reference group that have a direct or indirect influence on the person’s attitudes.

Family is also one factor, which affects consumer behaviour to a certain extent.

People’s tastes in clothed, furniture’s, etc are also changed according to their

age.

Psychological Factors

Persons buying choices are also influenced by four major psychological

factors motivation, perception, learning and beliefs and attitudes.

Personal Factors

Buyer’s decisions are influenced buy personal outward characteristics. It

includes age, occupation, finance standard of living personality and self concept.
Consumer Behaviour aand Consumption Behaviour

 Consumer behaviour relates to an individual person

where as consumption behaviour relates to the mass or aggregate of

individuals

 The study of consumer behaviour always focuses and

the decision process of the individual consumer or consuming unit

such as the family.

 It includes all the efforts to describe and explain one

or more acts of choice either at a given time or over a period of time.

 In contrast, the study consumption behaviour is

concerned with the description and explanation of the behaviour is

concerned with the description and explanation of the behaviour

aggregates of consumers or consuming units, again at a given time

or over a period of time

 Consumption is also shaped by the stage of the family

life cycle, marketers often define their markets as certain life cycle

group and develop appropriate products and marketing plans.

 Attitudes are one of the most heavily researched concepts in

consumer behaviour.

 According to Gordon Allport’s classic definition “ attitudes are learned

predispositions to respond to an object” ( Allport 1935). More recent

p[erspectives view attitudes as a summary construct that represents

an individual’s overall feelings toward or evaluation of an object

( Zajonz, Markus 1982)

 Consumers hold attitudes toward a variety of objects that are

important to marketers, including individuals (celebrity endowers

such as Denis Rodman or Michael Jordan), brands ( Cheerios, Kix)

companies ( Texaco, Microsoft), product categories ( beef, pork,

tuna) retail stores (Kmart, Sears) or even advertisements ( The

Energizer bunny a)

 Attitudes are important to marketers because they theoretically

summarize a consumer’s evaluation of an object (or land or

company) and represent positive or negative feelings and behavioral

tendencies.

 Marketers keen interest in attitudes is based on the assumption that

they are related to consumers’ purchase behaviour.

 Considerable evidence supports the basic assumption of a

relationship between attitudes and behavior (Achenbaum 1970) . The

attitude – behavior link does not always hold; many other factors can

affect behaviour ( Wells 1985; Ajzen Fishbein 1977). Nevertheless,

attitudes remain very important to marketers.

Need for reviewing literature

Introduction

Knowledge is growing rapidly. It gets doubled in a very short span of time.

Scholars, researchers and writers go on adding knowledge through their studies

and writings. There is tremendous increase in the number of publications: books

and periodicals in developed and developing countries. India slone produces

annually about 20,000 books.

One who is not fully conversant with has gone before has little chance of

making a worthwhile contribution. Therefore a researcher has to survey the

available literature relating to his filed of study. He must keep himself update in

his field and related areas.

Literature

Literature in this context consists of

A. Books

B. Journals

C. Report

D. Research Dissertations and theses.

E. Newspapers

F. Micro Forms

What to review ?

The review of literature is not mere reading for reading sake; it is also not

a casual reading like reading of a story or novel. It is focuses and directed

towards specific purposes. It is also selective. A researcher has to select the

study them. The literature review starts with the selection of a problem for

research, continues through the various stages of the research process and ends

with report writing.

The purposes of review

The reasons for review of related literature are:

1. To gain a background knowledge of the research topic,

2. To identify the concepts relating to it, potential relationships

between them and to formulate researchable hypotheses,

3. To identify appropriate methodology, research designs,

methods of measuring concepts and techniques of analysis

to identify data sources used by other researchers, and to

learn how others structured the reports.

1.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Methodology

The researcher should first determent the kind of information needed to

answer the research questions. Secondly he must know the sources of data and

finally he must know the means by which he will gather information, which is

known as methodology.

Scope of the study

The present research study has a very wide scope. It covers various

aspects it is useful in several ways to various people.

a) It helps to find out the expectation of Customers in Motorcycle.

b) It shows the various reasons for selecting a particular Motorcycle.

c) It shows us, which is the leading brand in Motorcycle.

e) It helps them to improve the quality of the Motorcycle.

f) It helps them to implement certain promotional activities to promote

sales.

g) It helps the manufacturer to know what the current trends is and

what are the tastes and preference of customer and accordingly

they could make changes in their products.

1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY\

Primary objectives

 To study the brand preference of Customer

 To study the satisfaction level of Customer.

 To identify the factors influencing the purchase decision.

 To find out the consumer opinion with respect to dealership.

 To give appropriate suggestion to improve the quality

Secondary objectives

 To study the Socio-economic background of the Customers.

 To analyze the consumer personal factors (such as age, sex, occupation

Educational Qualification, monthly income, location, professional status,

habit, family) upon the con summers attitude towards the two wheeler.

 To find out the various factors to buy the bike.

 To find out the consumer opinion about various bike.

Hypothesis

The level of satisfaction two wheeler consumers opinion shows that there

is only a marginal dissatisfaction.

enquiring two or more show rooms before purchasing a vehicle is good of

bad.

 Consumers prepare cash purchases to 9 buy two wheelers.

 Most of the two wheeler owners service their vehicle through the dealer.

 The traveling distance of two wheeler owners differ based on their level of

education.

 To analysis the over all two wheeler information.

 To find out the consumer opinion on after sales service from the dealer &

private mechanic.

 To analyze the overall two wheeler information (such as kilometers bike

rank sourced and cleaning.

1.5 RESEARCH DESIGN

Definition

Research Design is the blue print of the proposed study. It represents the

overall scheme of the study. “A research design is a logical and systematic

planning and it helps directing a piece of research”.

Description Research studies are those studies with are concerned with

the describes the characteristic of a particular individuals or a group here

diagnostic research studies determine the frequency with which something owes

or it’s with something else association. The studies concern whether certain

variables are associated is examples of diagnostics research studies. As against

these studies concerned with specific predictions, with narration of facts and

characteristic concerning individuals groups of situation are all examples of

describing research studies. Most of the social research comes under these
categories, from the point of view of the research sign the descriptive as well as

diagnostic studies share common requirements and as such as we may group

together there two types of research studies. In descriptive as well as in

diagnostics studies the research must be able to define clearly, what he wants to

measure and must hid defect network for meaning it always with a clean cut

definition of “Population” he wants to study. Since the aim as to obtain complete

and accurate information in the said studies, the procedure to be used must be

carefully planned. The research derives must make even though primitive for

protection with due to concern for economical completion of the research study.

The design is must be rigid and not flammable and must foam attention on the

following:

a) Formulation of the objectives of the study (what is the study about

and why is it being made).

b) Designing the method of data collection (what techniques of

gathering data until he adopted)

c) Selection the samples. (How much material will be needed)

d) Collecting the data (Where can the required data be found with

what time period should the data be related?)

e) Processing and analyzing the data.

f) Reporting the findings.

1.6 PRE-TESTING

The interview was pre-tested on 25 respondents. It was found that

complete information could not be collected, few more questions were adopted

and few were deleted.

1.7 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

Hypothesis is a proposition, condition or principle, which is assumed,

perhaps without belief in order to draw logical conclusions. Hypothesis

are formulated to explain observed facts, conditions, of behaviours and to serve

as a guide in the research process.

Formulation of hypothesis.

The research has formulated the following hypothesis for the study.

Definition

Lundberg defines hypothesis as “a tentative generalization, the validity

of which remains to be tested”.

Goode and Hatt define that it as “a proposition, which can be put to a

test to determine its validity”.

1. Age has a direct influence with the brand preference.

2. There is a significance association between occupation and brand

preference.

3. The feature expectation of the brand has an association with brand

wise ownership of the customers.

4. There is significance between and annual income and brand

preference of their brands.

Target area

Sampling

Sampling method is the process of learning about the population on the

basis of a sample. Sample is the part of the Universe, which we select for the

purpose of investigation.

 A sample should exhibit the characteristics of the universe.

universe”.

 Sampling is a common activity in our day-to-day life.

Definition

Paul L.Erdos and Arthur J.Morgan define a sample thus: “Stastical

sampling may be defined as a process of selecting a segment of the

universe to obtain information of ascertainable reliability about the

population”.

If a small number in items or parts called a sample are chosen convenient

from a large number of items or a whole the sample will tend to have the same

characteristics and to have them in approximately the same proportion as the

Universe.

Convenience or accidental sampling

This is a non-probability sampling. It means selecting sample unit in a just

‘hit and miss’ fashion, (e.g.) interviewing people whom we happen to meet. This

method is also known as accidental sampling.

The samples design in this research study in a non-probability sampling

design. It is known as purposed something are deliberate sampling. The sample

size for Customer is 200.

Sampling frame

This is the test of population elements from which the sample is drawn.

Tools of data collection

The required data for the studies are collected by a well prepared pre

tested questionnaire interview schedule is also adopted for gathering the required

data. Questionnaires are used to collect the required data from the consumers.
 The questionnaires consist of open ended, closed ended, ranking

schedules and multiple choice questions.

Sampling plan

The sampling techniques adopted for this study is simple random

sampling. Simple random sampling is used and disproportional allocation is

made.

1.8 SAMPLING SIZE

200 samples are collected from consumers, who are using two wheelers

1.9 AREA OF ANALYSIS

The researcher conducted a study by visiting several customers in

THANJAVUR, KUMBAKONAM, THIRUVARUR areas and got details

about the BAJAJ Motorcycle. Here several dealers were consulted.

1.10 DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUE

Data

The search for answers to research questions calls of collection of data.

Data are facts, figures and other relevant materials, past and present, serving as

bases for study and analysis.

Primary sources

Primary sources are original sources from which the researcher directly

collects data that have not been previously collected.

Secondary sources

These are sources containing data, which have been collected and

compiled for another purpose. The secondary sources consist of readily

available data.
Data collection process

The interview was pre tested on 25 respondents. It was found that the

complete information could not be collected, few were delete.

Analysis of data

The analysis of data collected in this research study was done in the

following:

• Tables

• Bar graph

• Processing analysis (Chi-square test)

Statistical tools used

Statistical tools such as percentage cross tabulation chi square descriptive

statistics correlation and one way an nova are used to analyse the data.

The primary and only tools used in a variety study is a questionnaire. The

questionnaire and in this research had various dimensions and covers various

aspects.

The variations aspects covered by the questionnaires are as follows:

• Name of the respondents

• Address of the respondents

• Age of the respondents

• Occupation of the respondents

• Annual Income of the respondents.

• Size of the family.

• Reason for preference of a Motorcycle.

• Reason for preference of your brand

• Media attracts and influences the purchase decision of a Motorcycle

• Satisfaction regarding pricing strategy of the company

• Satisfaction of after sale service of the dealer

• Recommendation of the brand to your friends and relatives

• Satisfaction level of Motorcycle.

Operational definition

Market

In this study a market refers to all the potential consumers for motorcycle

sharing a particular need or want who might be willing and able to engage in

Exchange to satisfy that need or want.

Industry

An Industry in this study refers to a group of firms that offer a motorcycle

or class of motorcycle that are close substitutes for each other.

Competitor

A competitor in this study refers to a company in the same industry

producing similar motorcycle or class or motorcycle similar to another company.

Consumer

In reference to this study the consumer buys motorcycle for his own use.

The Motorcycles are bough for final use by Individuals who are referred to us end

users or ultimate consumers.

Product

A product in this study refers to motorcycle that can offer to a market to

satisfy a need or want.

In this study a brand is a name term, sign, symbol, or a combination of

them, Intended to identity the motorcycle of one seller or group of sellers and to

differentiate them from those of competitors.

Advertising

Advertising in this study is any paid form of non-personal presentation and

promotion of motorcycles by an identical sponsor.

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion in this study means a diverse collection of incentive tools.

Mostly short term designed to stimulate quicker and for greater purchase of

motorcycles by consumers or the trade.

Media

Media the vehicle through which the and advertising message is delivered

to the society.