Title : Comparative Study Of Buying Behaviour Of Young Married

Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

Consumer Behaviour

Executive PGDM – 2008-2009

Individual Project-1 (A) Comparative Study of Buying Behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couples

Submitted ByModak Priy (08XPGDM31)

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

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1

Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Neena Sondhi, IMI Delhi, under whose able guidance study has been undertaken. I am thankful to her for providing me guidance and support for this study. I would also like to thank Mr.& Mrs Amit Singh and Mr.& Mrs Saurabh Upreti who has been always very prompt in replying to all my queries and supported me to complete the study.

Sincerely,

Date :

Modak Priy 08XPGDM31 Executive PGDM IMI Delhi

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

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Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

Project Description In this survey for our Consumer Behaviour class, examining the effect of various parameters on consumer decision making is done. In particular, Interview of two married couple’s one in the young married and the second in the Empty Nest I category was carried out The three category of product purchase was selected :(a) Regular grocery purchase (b) Last weekend entertainment decision (c) Last major purchase The report examining the demographics and lifestyle of young married and Empty nest I, it also delineates the spending pattern of those within the group and the decision making process, was it individual/autonomous/joint? Analyzing the differences/similarities in the light of my conceptual understanding. Trying to find out the implications for the marketer. Project Abstract Young Married: The lifestyles of two young singles are greatly altered as they develop a shared lifestyle. Joint decisions and shared roles in household responsibilities are in many instances new experiences. Saving, household furnishings, major appliances and more comprehensive insurance coverage are among the new areas of problem reorganization and decision making to which a young married couple must give serious consideration. The time spent by a young couple in this stage of the household lifecycle has grown as couples either delay their start in having children or choose to remain childless. This group heavily spends on theatre tickets, expensive clothes, luxury vacations, restaurant meals. Respondent: In the present report the young married couples are residence of New DelhiIndia, Husband & wife both are working and gaining yearly income Rs.4.5lac to 6.0lac. They generally purchase their household items due to basic need to accumulate the household things because their family is just in starting stage. Empty Nest I: These household represent the married couples whose children are not residing along with them.The household income level is comparatively more then the young married couples. Both adults typically will have jobs, so they are very busy. However the absence of responsibilities for children creates more free time than they have enjoyed since their youth. They also have money to spend on dining out, expensive vacations, second homes, luxury cars and time-saving services such as house-cleaning, laundry and shopping. They are prime market for financial services. They are also heavy purchase of upscale children’s products, as gifts for nices, nephews, grandchildren and friends’ children. Respondent: In the present report the Empty Nest I couples are residence of New Delhi-India, Husband working gaining yearly income Rs.7.5 lac to 9.0lac, wife is homemaker. They generally purchase their household items due to basic need as well as status oriented. Moreover Income level enhanced by the children also sending a portion of their income to their parent.

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

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3

Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

Based on the questionnaire answered by the married couple’s Observation for Regular Grocery Item Purchased Observation Item purchased

Young Married

Empty Nest I

Household kitchen items, basic utilatiries like toilet soap, washing powder,shampoo,etc Weekly

Household kitchen items,basic utilatiries like soap,washing powder,shampoo,toothpaste etc Monthly

Selection

Basic need plus few items influenced by promotion offer on some products Joint selection

Basic need plus few items influenced by impulsive movement due to special attribute of the product Individual selection

Decision

Joint decision

Price sensitive/Brand loyality

More price sensitive, less brand loyal,brand switchers.

Individual decision but admitted by both. Less price sensitive, more brand loyal, not brand switchers

Frequency Need

Observation for Last weekend entertainment decision Observation

Young Married

Item purchased

Movie theatre, Dining out

Dining out, Travelling

Frequency

Weekly

Weekly

Need

Entertainment purpose/impulsive

Due to change

Selection

Joint selection

Joint selection

Decision

Joint decision

Joint decision

Effect

Newspaper

Word of mouth from friends

Price

Littile bit price sensitive

Not price sensitive

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

Empty Nest I

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Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

Observation for Last major purchase Observation

Young Married

Empty Nest I

Item purchased

Bike

Laptop

Need

Transportation(Husband)

Luxury based

Selection

Individual

Individual

Decision

Joint

Joint

Effect on purchase Price Sensitive/Brand Loyal

Friends-opinion leader

Media affected

More Price sensitive, could change the brand for a good offer or discount available.

Strictly Brand loyal

Differences of purchase decision between two category Factors Price Sensitiveness

Brand Loyalty

Group impact

Materialism

Young Married

Empty Nest I

This category is more price sensitive towards items either it’s a grocery items or a heavy purchase, more often they are willing to respond to change or differences in price. Young married are not a brand loyal consumer, they are brand switchers, more often they switch their brand towards price and amount or any special deal. This is the time when their taste for a specific brand is under development. No group influence, since they are just new for the society so no reference group.

This category is less price sensitive for all items.

Terminal materialism (Acquisition of items for the sake of owning the item itself)

Instrumental materialism (Acquisition of things to enable one to do something)

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

Empty nest I consumer are a complete brand loyal, they do not switches their brand occasionally, they are in the phase where taste of a specific brand is developed fully.

Heavy group impact, reference group impact.

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Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

Differences of purchase decision between two category Factors

Young Married

Empty Nest I

Influence

Individuals, situational

Group, impulsive

Need

Need base

Need / status base

Motives

Basic motives

Basic and advanced motives

Physiological

More Physiological need (Food, water, sleep related products)

Safety

Less Safety need products (Only insurance like products due to tax saving)

More Physiological need as well as materialistic need (Food, water, sleep as well as luxury based products) More Safety need products (seeking physical safety and security, stability, familiar surrounding, insurance like products) Internal as well as external belongingness like products like gift for their niece, nephews, friends’ children etc. High tendency (Desire for status, superiority, self respect and prestige)

Belongingness Internal belongingness feeling (internal/external) related products like gifts, shopping for their partners Esteem

Low tendency

Income level

Income level low as only one member is earning

Media effect

Media exposed is Television and print media

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

Income level is very high as the group having more income as spend more time in job as well as children also sending some portion of their income to their parent. Media exposed is television, print as well as word of mouth.

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Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

Implications for the marketers: MOTIVATION AND MARKETING STRATEGY: Purchase of each of products and brands is caused by a different motive, each require a distinct marketing and advertising program. Consumer do not buy products; instead, they buy motive satisfaction or problem solution. Thus, consumers do not buy perfume or cologne. Instead they buy romance, sex appeal, sensual pleasure, sophistication, or a host of other emotional and psychological benefits. Managers must discover the motives that their products and brands can satisfy and develop marketing mixes around these motives. For example, consumer often buys products and services as gifts for themselves, though they may feel some guilt at being self-indulgent. People make such purchases for a variety of motives, including rewarding themselves for an accomplishment. A marketer should identify the feeling related for a particular product and to be run advertising campaigns according to the feeling associated with the product. Each customer will have a certain price acceptability window and different customers have different limits in their perceptions of what price is within their range. For the marketing professional the trick is to figure out how customers determine what "price" means. Price Sensitivity Measurement method may be used. This method asks survey respondents to define a possible range of prices noted in a scale called a price ladder. In order for the survey to be valid and not become a self fulfilling prophecy, the prices represented must be positioned on the upper or lower ends of the scale and not in the middle. Survey respondents are ask to pick two different price points on the price scale: The point where the product is beginning to appear "expensive" or a poor value for the money, and the point where they perceive the product to be a "good buy". EMOTIONS AND MARKETING STRATEGY: Marketers have to be used emotions to guide product positioning, sales presentations and advertising on an intuitive level. For example, salesperson and other service providers frequently must deal with consumers displaying an array of emotions. Consumers actively seek products whose primary or secondary benefit is emotional arousal. Marketers design and position products to both arouse and reduce emotions. Advertisements include emotion-arousing material to increase attention, degree of processing, remembering and brand preference through classical conditioning or direct evaluation. SITUATIONAL INFLUENCES AND MARKETING STRATEGY: It is important to note that individuals do not encounter situations randomly. Instead, most people” create” many of the situations they face. Thus, individuals who choose to engage in physically demanding sports such as jogging, tennis or racquetball are indirectly choosing to expose themselves to the situation of “being tired” or “being thirsty”. This allows marketers to develop products, advertising and segmentation strategies based on the situations that individuals selecting various lifestyle are likely to encounter. After identifying the different situations that might involve the consumption of a product, marketers must determine which products or brands are most likely to be purchased or consumed across those situations. One method of dealing with this question is to jointly scale situations and products. Determine how products are currently used across situations can help the marketer develop appropriate advertising and positioning strategies. ACCEPTANCE STRATEGY :Acceptance strategy is similar to preference strategy. However it is complicated by the fact that the target market is not seeking information about the brand. Therefore in addition to the activities involved in the preference strategy described

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

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Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

above the marketers must attract the consumers attention or otherwise motivate them to learn about the brand. Long term advertising designed to enhance low-involvement learning learning is another useful technique for gaining acceptance. Extensive advertising with strong emphasis on attracting attention can also be effective. Conclusion In order to design an effective marketing program, it is necessary to have a complete understanding of the potential customers. It is only with such a complete understanding that we can be sure we have correctly identified the need set. In addition, we cannot communicate effectively with our customers if we do not understand the context in which our product is purchased and consumed. During the question and research on both category It was found that although these two generations looks similar somewhat in their outlook and in some few needs like the basic design for the vehicle they will purchased will be the same (not giving importance for children), but the major difference between the two are the result of differing life stages and their income level. The survey conducted was basically in two categories low involvement and high involvement and a entertainment based purchase. For low involvement product like grocery items Younger married do their shopping mostly need based and they enjoy their shopping, moreover they are price sensitive towards items while Empty nest I do their shopping for need cum brand based, here in the low involvement product they do rely on brand due to reliability of the items that they are using. They are not price sensitive. For High involvement product like technological products and heavy purchase items, there is a similarity observed between these two categories, even young married couples have low familiarity with the product and Empty nest I having sound knowledge about the product, but here opinion leader plays important role in their purchase, both category have influence with media and advertisement, more and less they rely on opinion leader for high involvement products. Involvement can also categorized in terms of two key perspectives-product involvement and brand decision involvement. While the product involvement is formed and modified by product appeal, product hedonistic impact, and product utility, it is maintained here that certain products have particular importance in different culture. This will have a direct impact on the involvement process. Brand decision involvement is formed and modified by brand appeal, brand hedonistic impact, and brand risk. Here it is maintained again in some cultures different brand have a different impact on consumer behavior. Perceived risk and other mediating factors are other important forces influencing the purchase behavior through their impact on actual involvement. Among other mediating factors, perhaps one of the most important factor is familiarity. Finally, a distinction is made

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

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Title : Comparative study of buying behaviour of Young Married and Empty Nest I Couple

Subject : Consumer Behaviour

between felt involvement and actual involvement. Many of these factors like modifiers, and mediators need to be understand by marketers. They directly influence marketers plan. A number of factors for purchase behavior are commonly influenced by 1. Culture/subculture 2. Social status 3. Reference groups 4. Household characteristics 5. Financial status/expectations 6. Previous decision 7. Individual development 8. Motives 9. Emotions 10. Current situations. Once managers are aware of problem reorganization pattern generated by the above factors among their target market they can react by designing marketing mix to solve the recognized problem.

Batch : Executive PGDM 2008-09 (08XPGDM31)

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