Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PROJECT
The Consumer Power of Women in India
Prepared by
Mathew Chandy EPGCMM0714
Nimish Mohanan EPGCMM0715
Sinoj Cyriac EPGCMM0716
Jerin Cherian EPGCMM0711
C.K. Cherian EPGCMM0707
Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
INTRODUCTION
India is a country of 1.2 Billion people and nearly 590 million of it are women. Traditionally,
India has been a male dominated country. The socioeconomic setup of the country emphasised
on a culture where females were being restricted to household duties and the males were the
breadwinners for the family. Over the last 2 decade, empowerment of women has resulted in a
huge change in this scenario and the role of women in the Indian society is no longer restricted to
that of a home maker. The increase in the female literacy rate along with globalization of the
Indian economy has resulted in tremendous growth in the employment opportunity for women.
With the drive to empower and educate women, the number of earning women in India increased
considerably. The urbanization of India resulted in more and more number of nuclear families
evolving and detaching themselves from the traditional joint family system. As a result, the
nuclear family units became more independent in their purchase decision making. In these
nuclear families, women started having a great deal of influence in the purchase decision making
process.
Women in Indian Economy
Women in the emerging markets still face obstacles in their pursuit of equality, despite all the
progress so far. A study conducted in 2011 showed that emerging market women were still
getting married at a significantly early age. 47% of 2024 year old Indian women were already
married before the age of 18. However, despite early marriage, women have been able to delay
motherhood. This helped them in joining the workforce and getting independent.
The factors which influence the consumption patterns in India are diverse. With changing
demographics and rising incomes, the emergence of women both as consumers and decision
makers is playing a tremendous role. According to a recent IMRB survey of about 9,000 urban
Indian women, the average income of women living and working in cities increased to
Rs 9,457 a month in 2010, up from Rs 4,492 in 2001. According to official data, India's per
capita income rose from Rs 16,688 in 200001 to Rs 54,835 in 201011, a 228% rise. With the
average income of women and of urban households increasing over the years, the propensity to
spend has also gone up significantly. Although, there is a strong sense of deriving value for
money out of all purchases made, the thought of putting all of the household income into savings
is slowly diminishing, as per IMRB International.
The overall size of the Indian female economy is expanding fast. In 2010, some 134 million
working women earned $280 billion. By 2020, there will be 158 million working women and
their earnings will have more than tripled—to some $900 billion.
Women are emerging as decisionmakers when it comes to purchase of most consumer durables,
health and beauty items and also groceries. An interesting study by Nielsen in 2011 found that
Indian women are the most likely to spend (rather than save) any extra cash they might happen to
have on themselves over the next five years. Nearly all, 96%, anticipated buying clothes, while
77% said they would buy health and beauty products and 44% planned to purchase home
electronics. According to a study by BCG (Boston Consulting Group) among the urban Indian
women, Some 81 percent of the Indian women believe that their personal life will be better five
years from now, and 86 percent—the highest of any country surveyed—believe that they will
achieve more both economically and professionally in ten years.
Research Objective
The goal of this research is to understand and analyse the role of Indian Women in the purchase
decision across some specific products and services. It is expected to help the marketers in
understanding the women’s needs and cater products and services to meet their specific needs.
Methodology
The type of survey methods used are
1. Telephonic Interviews
2. Personal Interview Respondents were interviewed personally, in the form of InHome &
Mall intercept interviews
3. Electronic Interviews (Email and Internet) Online survey forms were administered via
electronic mail and other social media networks (facebook & linkedin)
Sampling
Sampling Population
Indian women above the age of 18 years. The respondents of this age group were considered
assuming that the average Indian women exercise their decisive powers from this age.
Sampling Technique
Convenience sampling technique was used for this research.
Limitations
The limitations were:
1. Sample size were limited to certain regions and may not represent the total population.
2. Uniform representation of samples across different age group have not
been considered.
Data Analysis and Findings
The study was conducted amongst 184 women from 5 major cities in India. They were all from
different walks of life and belonged to various income levels. Refer to figure 1.1 &1.2
Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2
The findings from the survey are illustrated below:
The percentage of working women in the cities have made tremendous growth as compared to a
decade ago. 72% are working compared to the 17% homemakers. Interestingly 10% have taken
up the challenges of entrepreneurship.
Self Employed 10%
Working 72%
Home maker 17%
Table : 01
Figure 2
To evaluate,
the awareness of women consumers in the Indian market and the extent to which
their needs are being catered to, they were posed with a series of questions in the questionnaire.
They were asked if the products and services in various categories
1. Already cater to their needs?
2. Should focus more on their needs?
3. Does not require any particular attention to women?
The findings are illustrated below:
1. Financial Investments:
Figure 3.1
62% of the respondents said that this industry should focus more on the needs of women;
understand their needs and offer specific solutions. 28% had the opinion that their needs were
already addressed to whereas 10% mentioned that these products need not particularly address
their needs.
2.
Car:
Figure 3.2
39% of the women felt that the automobile industry is not focussing on their needs. The survey
shows that there is a major scope of improvement and it is not just the aspects of speed and
design that need to be focused upon. 38% of the respondents felt that their needs are already
addressed.This part of the population were found to be mostly the working women who are
independent and focussed more on the specific characteristics of a car like mileage, variants
(Petrol /Diesel) etc.
3. Children’s education
Figure 3.3
79% percent had an opinion that this service was focused on them whereas 78% said that it
already focused on their needs.
4. House, Children’s education, Home furnishing and Consumer electronics
When questioned about purchasing a house, home furnishing, consumer electronics, places to go
for vacation and choice of restaurants majority had an opinion that they already focused on the
needs of women.
House
Figure 3.4
Home furnishing
Figure 3.5
Children’s school / education
Figure 3.6
Consumer electronics
Figure 3.7
While evaluating the influence of advertisements on decision making , we arrived at the
following conclusion (refer the table below). Advertisements helped a lion’s share of the
respondents to take a decision regarding the purchase of a car, purchase of home furnishing,
consumer electronics, choosing vacation packages and choosing restaurants. On the other hand,
advertisements did not make a considerable influence with regards to financial
investments(40%), choice of children’s education(28%) and purchasing of a house(45%).
Industry Yes No
Figure 4.2
An information that will help the marketers to
decide on communicating value
, will be the
women’s exposure to media and the time spent on each. See the below trend:
Television:
Figure 4.3
Newspaper:
Figure 4.4
Internet:
Figure 4.5
Smart phones:
Figure 4.6
Appendix
Annexure I Questionnaire
The Complete form can be viewed at
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ahrglrkYEogDvvlEpSyBjyrppDeLw3tqFMD8fggaEw/vi
ewform?c=0&w=1
Conclusion
Our survey mainly catered to the urban women, revealed that almost 72% of women are working
and contributing to the household income.
Please see the below table to summarise the influencing power of women in buying decisions.
(based on the result from table 03 )
Industry Influencing power of women
Financial Investments 93%
Car 82%
House 81%
Home Furnishing 85%
Consumer Electronics 76%
Restaurants 94%
Vacations 91%
Table 04
Women felt that house , home furnishing, consumer electronics, places to go for vacation and
choice of restaurants were already catering to them well. The potential for improvement was
identified in financial investments and automobile four wheelers where the influencing power of
women was also considerably high.
Majority of the women were aware of the market offerings and advertisements were found to
have a considerable influence on the purchasing decisions, except in the case of children's
education where the relevance wes relatively less.
The results of our survey show that women in the Indian economy have a considerable influence
in taking purchasing decisions.
With education, increased opportunities and women empowerment programmes the influence of
women in making buying decisions is bound to improve. As women become more financially
independent and have a greater say in choosing products and services for the household, it
becomes ever more imperative for marketers in catering to their specific need. With wide choice
of product options available in the market , women customers are not compiled to be loyal to any
brand unless they see their specific needs being met with a real value proposition.Marketers on
the other hand should realise the potential in developing products and marketing them to target
the women consumers keeping their needs in mind. The more marketers succeed in
communicating their respective values to the women consumers, the more they become capable
of deciding on what they really need. Thus when they are convinced they will be in a better
position to execute their buying power.
REFERENCES
1.
The HBR review Female Economy by Michael J. Silverstein and Kate Sayre
,
https://hbr.org/2009/09/thefemaleeconomy
2.
Driving Growth: The female economy of India and China,
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/consumer_products_globalization_driving_
growth_the_female_economy_in_china_and_india/