PROJECT ON A STUDY ON CONSUMERS BUYING BEHAVIOUR WITH RESPECT TO PEPSI PRODUCTS

INDEX

CHAPTER 1
Introduction:
Consumer-buying behavior according to Kotler (2004, p.601) is defined as The buying behavior consumers individuals and households who buy goods and services for personal consumption. the term consumer can be described as a person who acquires goods and services for self satisfaction is often used to describe two different kinds of consuming entities: the personal consumers and the organizational consumers. The personal consumers buy goods and services for his/her own use. In this context the goods are bought for final use by individual, who are organizational consumers, encompasses for profit and not for profit business, government agencies, institutions, all of them must buy products, equipment and services in order to run their organization.

What is Consumer Buying Behavior?

Definition of buying behavior Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products. Need to understand:

why consumers make the purchases that they make? what factors influence consumer purchases? the changing factors in our society. Definition of buying behavior

Consumer Buying Behavior refers to the buying behavior of the ultimate consumer. A firm needs to analyze buying behavior for:

Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on the firms success. The marketing concept stresses that a firm should create a Marketing Mix (MM) that satisfies (gives utility to) customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and how consumers buy. Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.

Stages of the Consumer Buying Process Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). Actual purchasing is only one stage of the process. Not all decision processes lead to a purchase. All consumer decisions do not always include all 6 stages, determined by the degree of complexity...discussed next.

The 6 stages are: 1. Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the actual condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your need to eat. Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information--did not know you were deficient? I.E., see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes. 2. Information search-o Internal search, memory. o External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth). Marketer dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc. A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set. Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is Chinese food Indian food burger king klondike kates etc Evaluation of Alternatives--need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to eat something spicy, Indian gets highest rank etc. If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives. Purchase decision--Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase etc. Purchase--May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product availability. Post-Purchase Evaluation--outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance, have you made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc. After eating an Indian meal, may think that really you wanted a Chinese meal instead.
o o o o

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4. 5. 6.

Types of Consumer Buying Behavior Types of consumer buying behavior are determined by:

Level of Involvement in purchase decision. Importance and intensity of interest in a product in a particular situation. Buyers level of involvement determines why he/she is motivated to seek information about a certain products and brands but virtually ignores others.

High involvement purchases--Honda Motorbike, high priced goods, products visible to others, and the higher the risk the higher the involvement. Types of risk:

Personal risk Social risk Economic risk

The four type of consumer buying behavior are:

Routine Response/Programmed Behavior--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.

The purchase of the same product does not always elicit the same Buying behaviour. Product can shift from one category to the next.

CHAPTER 2 Review of Literature

1.) Pepsi Tries to Change Consumer Perceptions
Henry Assael State that at a time marketers seek to strengthen a brands image through change. As one recent example, consumer around the world have watched Pepsi change from its familiar red, white, and blue cans to a blue background with the Pepsi globe. The planned $300 million campaign was designed to create global conformity in design and consistency in brand image. Pepsi described the decision to revise the well-known packaging as a way for its global brand to have one look and one feel around the world. The idea for the change evolved from Pepsis desire to improve its sales overseas, and also its consumption. In the united kingdom, Pepsi huge advertising and promotions during the change, such as coloring the masthead of the daily mirror blue and using celebrities like Cindy Crawford and Andre Agassi in its ads, led to close to a 70% recognition rate just 48hrs after the launch of the camping. By 1998, two years after the initial launch, Pepsi claimed to have rolled out the blue can in 190 world markets. Pepsi continues to believe that it made the right long term decision. Pepsis core consumer group, teens, is increasingly global through access to the internet, cable channels like MTV, and travel. Uniformity in perceptions among teens has strengthened the brands image and worldwide position. Since the Pepsi blue project stopped making headlines, Pepsi has used a joy of cola campaign globally to buy more and more Pepsi product

2.) Factors Impacting Consumer Buyer Behaviour It has been established that the consumer buying behaviour is the outcome of the needs and wants of the consumer and they purchase to satisfy these needs and wants. Although it sounds simple and clear, these needs can be various depending on the personal factors such as age, psychology and personality. Also there are some other external factors which are broad and beyond the control of the consumer. A number of researches have been carried out by academics and scholars on identifying and analyzing those factors affecting the consumers buying behaviour and as a result, various types of factors have been identified. These factors have been classified into different types and categories in different ways by different authors. For instance, Wiedermann et al (2007) classified them into internal and external factor. On the other hand, Winer (2009) divided them into social, personal and psychological factors. Despite the fact that they have been classified into different groups by different authors they are similar in scope and purpose (Rao, 2007).

3.) Review on Consumer Buying Behaviour: The topic of consumer behaviour is one of the massively studied topics by the researchers and marketers in the past and still being studied. Researchers show different reasons as to why consumer behaviour has been the topic of many academics and researchers. One of the common views is that understanding consumer behaviour has become a factor that has a direct impact on the overall performance of the businesses (Kotler and Keller, 2012). Another view suggests that understanding consumer behaviour has become crucial especially due to fierce competition in retail industry in the UK and worldwide (Lancaster et al, 2002). It is worth noting that consumer buying behaviour is studied as a part of the marketing and its main objective it to learn the way how the individuals, groups or organizations choose, buy use and dispose the goods and the factors such as their previous experience, taste, price and branding on which the consumers base their purchasing decisions (Kotler and Keller, 2012). One of such studies of consumer buying behaviour has been conducted by Acebron et al (2000). The aim of the study was to analyze the impact of previous experience on buying behaviour of fresh foods, particularly mussels. In their studies the authors used structural equation model in order to identify the relationship between the habits and previous experience on the consumer buying decision. Their findings show that personal habits and previous experience on of the consumers have a direct impact on the consumers purchase decision in the example of purchasing fresh mussels. They also found that the image of the product has a crucial impact on the purchasing decision of the consumer and further recommended that the product image should continuously be improved in order to encourage the consumers towards purchasing.