CHAPTER- 1

PLAN OF STUDY

CONSUMER PREFERENCE (INTRODUCTION TO TOPIC) RESEARCH OBJECTIVES LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1

CONSUMER PREFERENCE

CONSUMER
The capacity to purchase goods and services offered for sale by marketing institution in order to satisfy personal or household needs, wants or desires. According to a statement made by Mahatma Gandhi, consumer refers to the following, A consumer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so. So consumer is like the blood of our business and also a satisfied customer is a word of mouth advertisement of a product / services.

CONSUMER SATISFACTION
Every human being is a consumer of different products. If there is no consumer, there is no business. Therefore, consumer satisfaction is very important to every business person. The consumer satisfaction after purchase depends on the product performance in relation to his / her expectations. According to Philip Kotler consumer satisfaction is defined on, personal feeling of pleasure resulting from comparing a products pursued performance in relation to his / her expectations. Consumer satisfaction is the level of a persons felt state resulting from comparing a products perceived performance (outcome) in relation to the persons expectations. This satisfaction level is a function of difference between perceived performance and expectations. If the products performance exceeds expectations, the customer is highly satisfied or delighted. If the performance matches the expectations, the customer is satisfied. If the products performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. Consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction is the feeling derived by the consumer when he compares the products actual performance with the performance that he expects out of it. Consumers make their expectations from the service quality, service, delivery, communications, past experiences and references.

These all are to be judged correctly by the management so that their perceptions match with consumer expectations. If any of these factors are wrongly interpreted then the expected level of consumer satisfaction cannot be reached. Consumer attitude measurements are taken on either potential buries or existing clients buries in order to identify their characteristics. Why should the competent market engineer conduct consumer research? Consumers surveys can provide the researcher with a wealth of information, valuable of the marketing function. Detailed information regarding the customer in the market will provide the basic platform for all marketing decisions. Marketing decisions maker needs descriptive information about the total potential unit and dollar sales in each segment. Perhaps the most important one is that a seller needs to be aware of the relevant objective and need of consumer and how their objectives might best be served by the products.

MARKET
The term market is derived from Latin word Mercatus, which means to trade that is purchasing and selling of goods. It also means merchandise truthic place of business. According to Pyle, Market includes both place and region in which buyers and sellers or in free competition with one another.

MARKETING
Marketing includes all the impacts involved in the exchange process of transferring the possession and ownership of goods and services from the producer to the ultimate consumers

MARKETING FORMULA
a. The foremost step in business aims at profit. b. For profit making he can sell the products. c. For selling the product he should create customers. d. For creating the customers, customers needs of preferences to be identified and satisfied. e. To satisfy the customers new product to be produced. Marketing is trying to learn, Who buy the products or services?
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 How do they buy? When do they buy? Where do they buy? Why do they buy? It is otherwise called understand and predict human actions in their buying role. A marketer is act as consumers while them purchasing any goods and services, and try to market that product to an ultimate consumer. So, marketing is starts with consumer and ends with consumer. So, todays market is called on consumer market. It can be defined on, All the individuals and household who buy goods and services for personal consumption. So, the consumer satisfaction is get more importance in the marketing functions.

IMPORTANCE OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION

The needs to satisfy customer for success in any commercial enterprise is very obvious. The income of all commercial enterprise is derived from the payments received for the products and services supplied to its customers. If there is no customer there is no income and there is no business. Then the core activity of any company is to attract and retain customers. It is therefore no surprise that Peter Drucker the renowned management Guru, has said to satisfy the customers is the mission and purpose of every business. Satisfaction of customer is essential for retention of customers and for continuous sales of the products and services of the company to customers. This establishes the needs for and the importance of customer satisfaction. The satisfaction of consumers is different from one to another. Became, each consumer has the different behaviour in their life. So, the marketers satisfy the consumer, he must very well know the behaviour of consumer.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Consumer displays in searching for purchasing, using, evaluating, producing, services and ideas which they expect will satisfy their needs. In other words, It is a study of physiological, social, physical, behaviours of all potential customer as they become aware of evaluation, purchase and consumption and tell other about products and services.

The study of consumer behaviour is the study of how individuals make divisions to spend their resources like money, energy, time, etc. on consumption of products.

CONSUMER PREFERENCE
All marketing starts with the consumer. So consumer is very important person to a marketer. Consumer decides to purchase, for whom to purchase, why to purchase, from where to purchase, and how much to purchase. In order to become a successful marketer, he must know the liking or disliking of the customers. He must also know the time and the quantity of goods and services, a consumer may purchase, so that he may store the goods or provide the services according to the likings of the customers. Gone are the days when the concept of market was let the buyers beware or when the market was mainly the sellers market. As consumers, we play a very vital role in the health of economy local, national or international. The decision we make concerning our consumption behaviour affect the demand for the basic raw materials, for the transportation, for the banking, for the production; they effect the employment of workers and deployment of resources and success of some industries and failures of others. Thus, marketer must understand this preference (or taste) is a concept, used in the social sciences, particularly economics. It assumes a real or imagined choice between alternatives and the possibility of rank ordering of these alternatives, based on happiness, satisfaction, gratification, enjoyment, utility they provide. The study of the consumer preference not only focuses on how and why consumers make buying decisions, but also focuses on how and why consumers make choice of the goods they buy and their evaluation of these goods after use. So for success of any company or product promotion it is very necessary to depart its concentration towards consumer preference. Consumer preference is used primarily to mean to select an option that has the greatest anticipated value among a number of options by the consumer in order to satisfy his/her needs or desires. Preferences indicate choices among neutral or more valued options available. The preference of the consumer is the result of their behaviour they show during searching, purchasing and disposing the products. Consumer preference for a product can make or break a company. If consumers generally like a product, it can stay around for years and sell millions of copies. However, if consumers do
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not like the product, it could disappear very quickly if the company cannot figure out how to fix the problem.

1.2

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The purpose of doing this project is to understand the consumer behaviour towards Colgate and pepsodent toothpastes. Also the purpose would be learn the best practices there.

Primary objective
To understand which particular brand of toothpaste (Colgate or Pepsodent) is most preferred by people of different age groups.

Secondary objectives
1. To know about the customer satisfaction level associated with the product and the customer preference level. 2. To understand the impact of customer satisfaction on capturing the market share by fulfilling the customer needs. 3. To study the factors affecting the consumption pattern.

1.3. LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review done to support the study 1. Title To study the influence of packaging affecting brand selection in toothpaste industry. Author C. Anandan Objective To study the influence of packaging in brand of toothpaste. Methodology source of data for arriving at a conclusion is primary data. Hence the survey regarding the influence of packaging in selection of products for toothpaste was conducted at various retail outlets and some residence. Data was basically collected from housewives, students, family and shopkeepers. Conclusion Data collected from users help to fine tune their marketing strategies for profitability and customer loyally. 2. Title 3. Title Significant consideration in the purchase of consumer durable Author B.S Hundal
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Objectives To ascertain intensity of brand loyalty and offer useful implication for marketers. To ascertain intensity of loyalty and offer useful implication for marketers. To analyze the planning of brand choice, time of purchase and choice of point of purchase. Conclusion The study reveled that the consumers have a preference towards particular brand of consume durables and are not ready to buy any other. 4. Title Use of Coercive Strategies in Purchase decisions: Relationship between influence strategies and the degree of Involvement. Objectives To find out weather coercive strategies are being used by couple (talking loudly, looking unhappy, Anger, Authority) in making purchase decision. Conclusion Spouse decision behaviour is the key to understand how families arrive at purchase decisions. It was found out that spouse do not use coercion consistently across purchase decisions moreover an understanding of spousal behavioural interaction in a decisions may guide marketers in designing particular communication massages. 5. Title Research proposal on consumer decision analysis for purchase of Fruit Drinks. Author Protik Basu Objectives To determined the factors influencing the consumer decision while buying fruit drinks in the age group of 17-30 in the city of Pune. Conclusion With correlation test the