Consumer Behaviour

Related To Apparel Industry

Mentor-MR PRANAV VORA

SUBMITTED BY
CHARU SHARMA
DFT-3
71170600058
NIFT GANDHINAGAR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank my institute , National Institute of Fashion Technology for giving
me the opportunity to do the following project. This project helped me a lot in
learning the various aspects of consumer behaviour in apparel industry.
I would also like to thank my mentor Mr Pranav Vora for being a constant support
and helping me throughout the process of carrying out the project and for providing
me with his valuable guidance and opinions.
I would like to share this thanks with some more people which are an important part
of this project. They are the consumer and the shoppers who helped me in my
survey analysis by giving time to my questionnaire prepared. Moreover I would like
to thank my parents for their constant support.
Any changes or advice for the betterment of project is heartly accepted and will be
worked upon.

Table of contents
Topics

Page no

1. Introduction

2. Consumer behaviour

3. Types of consumer behaviour

4. Factors affecting consumer behaviour

5. Factors affecting buying behaviour

6. Stages in consumer behaviour

7. Application of consumer behaviour in market

8. Consumer behaviour in online shopping context

9. Theories affecting

10.

Methods for survey

10

11.

Conclusion

11

12.

Bibliography

12

Introduction
Who is a consumer??
According to Kotler, Consumers are individuals and households who buy goods and
services for personal consumption. While according to other theorist Cravens,
Consumers are represented by people in families and other kinds of household who
buy and use products and service to meet their need and wants. Interpretation of
consumer as given by Bhatt is, an individual who consumes goods, whether
produced by business unit or created by nature resources such as air, water, food
and utilities offered by the government and business organizations like hospitals,
religious, educational and other voluntary organization, etc.
The Indian consumers are classified into five categories based on their income level
by a McKinsey report taken from Indian take blogspot. It includes low level
consumers (up to US $160 per month), lower middle level (US $ 165 US $ 370per
month), middle level (US $ 370 US $ 910per month), upper middle level US $ 910
US $ 1850 per month) and high level (above US $ 1850 per month). India has large
share of young population starting from the age of 15 25 who tend to shop more in
recent days. It is generally observed that Indian consumers are becoming social
consciousness, and they use traditional media like internet and mobile to know about
the brands. The increase in salary class people has also created a new platform of
consumers.

Consumer behaviour
Consumer behaviour is defined as the behaviour that consumers display in
searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of products and services
that they expect will satisfy their needs. It comes under marketing branch.
Consumer behaviour is to understand how a consumer makes decision to buy goods
by using the available resources such as time, money, and effort for buying, using,
and disposing goods and services. It is a decision making process of an individual
physically by engaging in assessing, buying and using or disposing the goods and
services.

Types of consumer behaviour

The four type of consumer buying behaviour are:

Routine Response/Programmed Behaviour- buying low involvement

frequently purchased low cost items; need very little search and decision
effort; purchased almost automatically. Examples include soft drinks, snack
foods, milk etc.

Limited Decision Making--buying product occasionally. When you need to

obtain information about unfamiliar brand in a familiar product category,
perhaps. Requires a moderate amount of time for information gathering.
Examples include Clothes--know product class but not the brand.

Extensive Decision Making/Complex high involvement, unfamiliar, expensive

and/or infrequently bought products. High degree of
economic/performance/psychological risk. Examples include cars, homes,
computers, education. Spend a lot of time seeking information and deciding.
Information from the companies MM; friends and relatives, store personnel
etc. Go through all six stages of the buying process.

Impulse buying- no conscious planning.

Factors affecting consumer behaviour

Consumer behaviour is associated with the culture and economy of a country.

Consumers are influenced by their friends and socio cultural environment.

Indian consumers were more careful in lending and now this attitude is
changing with more credit options in the form of Credit cards and loans.

In recent years, there is a large shift in consumer behaviour among Indians

due to enhanced awareness and information technology.

Lifestyle among rural consumers has changed dramatically with influence of

education level, occupation and wide media coverage.

The study of consumer behaviour dwells from various themes, the important ones
are: Buying motive
Buying roles
Major factors influencing buying behaviour working towards enhancing
customer satisfaction
The five stages in consumer buying process.

Buying motives- A customer purchases a particular product or service

because of a strong inner feeling or force which instills in him a strong
desire to have possession of the same. A buying motive can be said to all
the desire considerations and impulses which induce a buyer to purchase
a given product. Basically, buying motives are of two kinds
1. Product motives
2. Patronage motive

Buying roles- A big task for the marketer is to identify the target buyers of a
particular new product. The marketer has to know who makes the buying decision for
the particular product category. Most of the purchase decision involves a decision
making unit (DMU) comprising 2 to 3 person. There are five different types of roles
that people play in a buying decision. They are as follows:

Initiator- The person who first suggests the idea of buying the product or
service.

Influencer- The person whose view or advice influences the decision.

Decider- The person who decides on any component of a buying decision:

whether to buy, what to buy, how to buy or where to buy.

Buyer The person who makes the actual purchase.

User- the person who consumes the product or service.

The information collected will help the company in designing the product, allocate
funds for the promotional budget, workout the communication media and decide for
whom the message is to be directed.

Consumer decision making varies with the type of buying decision. The decisions to
buy toothpaste, a tennis racket, computer or a car are all very different. Complex and
expensive purchases are likely to involve more buyer deliberation.

Enhancing customer satisfaction- In the existing business environment, markets

are turbulent and customer needs are fast changing. Therefore companies should
opt for ways to add value for their customers by offering products or services the way
they want it. When a customer has to choose from a large no of options, features,
pricing structures and various delivery methods, offering a unique product to every
individual customer will go on a long way adding value to consumer decision making
process.
According to Kotler, Customer satisfaction is an index for the product on how it
matches with the expectations of the buyer. If the product performs to the expected
level, the buyer is happy.
It is a continuous process which does not begin or end with a purchase; it covers the
entire ownership experience. There are three stages in the customer satisfaction
process1. Pre sales- During this stage, customers expectations are developed through
the various information sources.
2. During sales- When the customer is engaged in experiencing how to deal
with enquiries and sell products.
3. After sales- It refers to the period when the customer has started using the
Product.

Major factors influencing buying behaviour

Personality It relates to perceived personal characteristic that are consistently
exhibited. Personality is the sum of sensory experience others get from experiencing

Cultural factors
Culture- It is the basic determinant of a person wants. It is set of learnt beliefs,
values, attitudes and custom that are shared in society.

Sub culture- Smaller subcultures provide more specific identification socialisation

for its members. Subcultures involve- nationality groups, religious groups, racial and
geographic groups.

Social factors
Reference groups- These are social, economic or professional groups that
influence consumer behaviour. Consumers accept information provided by
their peer groups on quality, performance and style.
Family- plays the role of influencer, decider, purchaser and user in buying
process.
Roles and status also influence consumer behaviour.

Personal factors
Age the lifecycle of a person determines its buying decision and consumer
behaviour.
Occupation- it influences the consumption pattern because occupation
decides the ability to buy.
Economic circumstances- it consists if spend able incomes, debt, assets,
savings and buying power.

Psychological factors
Motivation- customers motivation refers to the desire and could be affected by
issues such as financial position, time constraints, overall value and perceived risks.

Perception
Beliefs and attitudes

The five stages in consumer buying process

Problem recognition- buying process starts when buyer recognises a need.
Information search- An aroused customer will be inclined towards the search for
information until the desired product is known and available.

Evaluation of alternatives
Purchase decision- customers have preferences among the various brands; a
liking towards a particular brand will lead to the purchase of the product.

Post purchase behaviour- once the product has been purchased; consumer will
experience some level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. If derived satisfaction is as
per expected then it will lead to brand preference.

Applications of consumer behaviour in marketing

Analyzing market opportunities

Selecting the target market

Determining the product mix i.e. product + price + distribution +

promotion.

Consumer behaviour in an online shopping context

The Internet-based electronic commerce environment enables consumers to search
for information and purchase products or services through direct interaction with the
Online store. That is, consumer-purchases are mainly based on the cyberspace
appearance such as pictures, images, quality information, and video clips of the
product, not on the actual experience. Consumers tend to engage in relational
behaviours to achieve greater efficiency in their decision making.
Online buying depends on the degree to which information can be employed by
consumers to predict their probable satisfaction with subsequent purchases.
The basic requirement for inducing a consumer to become a customer of an online
store and increasing his/her switching cost is to reduce the cost of information
search and to maximize the predictability of product quality by providing tailored
information to consumers.

Theories affecting consumer behaviour

1.The Halo Effect
One of the dilemmas facing consumers decision about whether to purchase
products offered by the brand is typically classified as The Halo Effect, following
from a concept that customers may change their initial evaluations / perceptions
about a product at a later level that might result in reduced sales.
2. The Litter Effect
This chapter highlighted the importance of maintaining a positive image for a brand,
corporate or individual product. Brand images create a representation for each brand
in the mind of the customer that has a positive or a negative impact. This image
plays a very important role in affecting any purchase activity made by the customer
in that product or segment class. Brand image is based on input from two factors,
types of associations of the brand and the personification of the brand.
This image strengthens the overall performance of the brand, both in terms of
tangible as well as intangible value and helps in developing a long term customerbrand. This is the concept delivered by brand equity.

Methods chosen for carrying out a survey on consumer behaviour

In order to make my project more effective I thought why not to conduct a survey and
practically analyse what are the current trends of consumers regarding the purchase
of apparel. Therefore I carried out a survey in my hometown Meerut , and analysed
the results obtained.
Methods filling up of questionnaire
General questioning to the shopkeepers and store managers.

Based on the survey conducted I have prepared a document which includes the
results obtained basically shown by the pie charts and bar graphs. It helps in
analysing the consumer behaviour of people in a city like Meerut .

Conclusion
This project has been very beneficial in understanding of the topic consumer
behaviour in apparel industry . It was a very good experience on the whole, learning
about different factors affecting the consumer behaviour in a market condition.
Moreover I came to know about the application of consumer behaviour in market and
in online shopping context and the various theories affecting it.

Bibliography
Websites

Bachelor Thesis Consumer Behaviour

www. Oppapers.com

Publications.thesis

www.2.graduate.ac

www.managementstudyguid.com

Marketingscience.info

KOTLER - pdf

Books

Consumer behaviour by wayne d hoyer

Consumer behaviour by s.l gupta and sumitra pal

Consumer behaviour and marketing by henry assael .

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