Project Report

On

“Consumers’ perception regarding branded and

unbranded grocery items”

PREFACE

A person learns to understand business from a realistic angle. With the help of

major project an individual show the practices of business.

I have done my project on the topic “Consumers perception regarding branded

and unbranded grocery items”. In my research I studied firstly what is brand,

importance of brand for company & about the branded grocery items. Then I

collected the data through questionnaire to know what consumer perceive about

branded grocery. Do they accept the branded grocery items or the prefer to buy lose

or unbranded grocery, in my research I also have tried to find out the factors that

pushes a customer from unbranded to branded & also the factor that stop them top

buy unbranded items. In today’s world of cutthroat competition the theory

“survival of the fittest” prevails. A comparison has to be made and weak points

should be overcome in order to meet customer’s demand with more efficiency.

STUDENT DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A project report takes a lot of efforts and labor for its completion. It

can never get completed without the toil. But in addition to, a lot of help is

requiring from sources also. This project could never had completed without the

endeavors of my project guide, Asst. Prof. Raman Kumar. His insight and

valuable suggestions helped me in every phase of making of the project, be it data

collection, data analysis or representation of the information. I express deep

gratitude to Asst. Prof. Raman Kumar. Besides, acknowledgements are also due

to the worthy director of the institute, Ashwani Kansara Under whose able

leadership such projects reach the level of refinement and polishing that is required

of them. During this project numerous other people helped me but mentioning

those entire names, here is not possible. To all those unnamed helpers, I extend my

heartiest thanks, as without their help this project would not have materialized.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapters Title Page no

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Study 1

Chapter 2 Objectives of the study 35

Chapter 3 Research 37

Chapter 4 Limitation of the study 41

Chapter 5 Data analysis and

interpretation

43

Chapter 6 Conclusion &

Recommendations

60

Bibliography

Annexure

CHAPTER-1

Introduction of the project

1

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

The packaged food industry is probably one of the most promising

emerging markets in India today. Gone are the days when wheat was sent to

the local ‘chakki’ to be milled into flour or mustard oil grinded at the local

‘kolu’s’. People today have become extremely conscious and are willing to

pay the extra rupees in order to ensure that quality product enter their

kitchens.

There has been a complete overhaul of lifestyle and traditional

systems in the last decade or so with the emergence and growth of nuclear

families. Meals are no more a family ‘event’ but have been relegated to a

mundane routine. People are hard-pressed for time and are constantly in

need of that magic something will save them an additional minute without

compromising on nourishment.

This must-hallowed gap has been effectively filled by the packaged foods

industry. Starting from instant noodles and soup, packaged rice and flour and

on to frozen peas and meat all of which is contently located under the roof of

the local supermarket. Branded and packaged foods fill this gap not by

saving only by saving time for the consumer but also ensure quality and

consistency.

The local supermarket too has come a long way. Today they door of urban

India by the hundreds. Associated distractions notwithstanding, the

supermarket has emerged as the one-stop shopping solution for families,

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Where all domiciles necessarily rub shoulders within each other at prices

that are competitive and more often than not even lower than the local

‘karyana’ store.

Through trial and error, intelligent consumers have realized how very

beneficial these ‘alternatives’ are. From salt to noodles, peas to chicken,

every thing is available today treated, processed and hygienically packaged

untouched by hand. Consumers have started preferring them in spite of the

fact that they are offered at a premium i.e. priced slightly higher than what

they would get at the local sabzi mandi or butcher hop unbranded (and

relatively more unclean).

Companies efforts have been aimed further ease the consumer’s

shopping experience and at the same time giving them total value for money.

So in my research I have selected this topic the ‘study of consumer

perception about branded and unbranded items’. In this project I find the

consumer liking disliking their way of thinking & their way of adopting the

thing. I studied what are the various factors that perceive are important while

purchasing and where the branded & unbranded grocery to them.

3

The meaning of brands

Brands are a means of differentiating a company’s products and services

from those of its competitors.

There is plenty of evidence to prove that customers will pay a substantial

price premium for a good brand and remain loyal to that brand. It is

important, therefore, to understand what brands are and why they are

important.

MacDonald sums this up nicely in the following quote emphasizing the

importance of brands:

“…It is not factories that make profits, but relationships with customers,

and it is company and brand names which secure those relationships”

Businesses that invest in and sustain leading brands prosper whereas those

that fail are left to fight for the lower profits available in commodity mark.

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What is a Brand?

One definition of a brand is as follows:

“A name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, that is

intended to identify the goods and services of one business or group of

businesses and to differentiate them from those of competitors”.

Inter brand - a leading branding consultancy - defines a brand in this way:

“A mixture of tangible and intangible attributes symbolized in a

trademark, which, if properly managed, creates influence and generates

value”

Manufacturers can use their own brands (known as manufacturer’ brand)

a brands of their distributor (distributor brands). Manufacturer/distributor

use brand names for a verity of reasons from simple identification purposes

to having legal

Protection for unique features of the products from imitations and help

consumers recognizes certain quality parameters. In some cases, brands are

just used to endow the product with unique story and character which itself

can be a basis for product differentiation.

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How a brand is created

Grocery companies spend enormous sum on building brand equity by way

of

1- Advertisements/publicity

2- Free samples

3- Low entry price

4- Promotions

Advertisements/publicity

Advertisement and promotion can induce trials but for sustained

loyalty, the manufacturer has to offer superior quality and value of money.

Most successful brands are founded on chance discovery of a new product/

process or assiduous research and development work. Major players invest

in R&D on their exiting brands and improve the product quality

continuously to maintain their edge over competitors. Advertising is paid

communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is

identified and the message is controlled. Variations include publicity, public

relations, product placement, sponsorship, underwriting, and sales

promotion.

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Every major medium is used to deliver these messages:

Television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the internet, and

billboards. Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on

the walls of an airport walkway, and the sides of buses, or heard in telephone

hold messages or in-store PA systems – nearly anywhere a visual or audible

communication can be placed.

Advertising clients are predominantly, but not exclusively, for-profit

corporations seeking to increase demand for their products or services.

Low entry price

Establishing a relatively low price for a product or service, usually to

stimulate demand and acquire market share. This makes the most economic

sense for the seller when there are significant economies of scale achievable

from high volume production, or when the buyers are price sensitive and the

seller has few competitive advantages

Free samples

A free sample is a portion of food or other product which is given out in

shopping malls, grocery stores, and other venues. Sometimes samples of

non-perishable items are included in direct marketing mailings.

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The purpose of a free sample is to acquaint the consumer with a new

product.

The concept of a free sample is not unlike that of a test drive, in that a

customer is able to try out a product before purchasing it.

There are lots of free samples online. Often, people will create forums to

share free samples they find, such as the Slick Deals

Establishing a relatively low price for a product or service, usually to

stimulate demand and acquire market share. This makes the most economic

sense for the seller when there are significant economies of scale achievable

from high volume production, or when the buyers are price sensitive and the

seller has few competitive advantages

Promotion

Single element of an advertising campaign. A promotion might be a short-

term price reduction, contest or sweepstakes, package giveaway, or free

sample offer. A promotion might also be a single mailing within a direct

mail campaign or series of advertisements that make up part of an ongoing

print advertising campaign. The Milk Advisory Board has employed

celebrities with milk mustaches in a series of magazine ads. These "Got

Milk?" print ads are a promotion within an overall campaign to increase

milk consumption.

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Promotional Objectives

There are a number of promotional objectives, some of the most common

being information dissemination, product demand, product differentiation,

product highlights, and sales stabilization. Regardless of the promotional

objective selected, the company's goal is to inform and convince consumers

to buy the product.

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Brand value to consumers

Brands, in fact, influence consumer behavior in a number

1. Reassurance: A brand is stamp of authenticity. It adds value by

promising ‘reliability’ and help to establish repeat purchase patterns. In a

foreign country, people seek the reassurance of familiar brands, even though

they are presumably traveling to find new experiences.

2. Value expression: We choose brands that reflect the individual values

that we possess as individual. We do this to communicate the desire singles

in the highly social environment we inhabit.

3. Usage: A strong brand increases a consumer’s usage and spends over

time, either within a category or as abridge into other categories. It has been

successful in every category, because the perception has been the

same-“consistent valve delivery to the same”.

4. Brand switch: in FMCG markets, experimenting less with competition

means that the brand achieve larger proportion of the category spend by the

consumer. For example, maggi soup is always bought by the consumer, and

is not being substituted by other soup brands.

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BRANDS - BUILDING A BRAND

What factors are important in building brand value?

Professor David Jobber identifies seven main factors in building successful

brands, as illustrated in the diagram below:

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1. Quality : Quality is a vital ingredient of a good brand. Remember the

“core benefits” – the things consumers expect. These must be delivered well,

consistently. The branded washing machine that leaks, or the training shoe

that often falls apart when wet will never develop brand equity. Research

confirms that, statistically, higher quality brands achieve a higher market

shares and higher profitability that there inferior competitors.

2. Positioning: Positioning is about the position a brand occupies in a

market in the minds of consumers. Strong brands have a clear, often unique

position in the target market. Positioning can be achieved through several

means, including brand name, image, service standards, product guarantees,

packaging and the way in which it is delivered. In fact, successful

positioning usually requires a combination of these things.

3. Repositioning: Repositioning occurs when a brand tries to change its

market position to reflect a change in consumer’s tastes. This is often

required when a brand has become tired, perhaps because its original market

has matured or has gone into decline. The repositioning of the Lucozade

brand from a sweet drink for children to a leading sports drink is one

example. Another would be the changing style of entertainers with above-

average longevity such as Kylie Minogue and Cliff Richard.

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4. Communication: Communications also play a key role in building a

successful brand. We suggested that brand positioning is essentially about

Customer perceptions – with the objective to build a clearly defined position

in the minds of the target audience. All elements of the promotional mix

need to be used to develop and sustain customer perceptions.

5. First-mover advantage: Business strategists often talk about first-mover

advantage. In terms of brand development, by “first-mover” they mean that

it is possible for the first successful brand in a market to create a clear

positioning in the minds of target customers before the competition enters

the market. There is plenty of evidence to support this. Think of some

leading consumer product brands like Gillette, Coca Cola and Sell tape that,

in many ways, defined the markets they operate in and continue to lead.

However, being first into a market does not necessarily guarantee long-term

success. Competitors – drawn to the high growth and profit potential

demonstrated by the “market-mover” – will enter the market and copy the

best elements of the leader’s brand (a good example is the way that Body

Shop developed the “ethical” personal care market but were soon facing stiff

competition from the major high street cosmetics retailers.

6. Long-term perspective: This leads onto another important factor in brand

building: the need to invest in the brand over the long-term. Building

customer awareness, communicating the brand’s message and creating

customer loyalty takes time. This means that management must “invest” in a

brand, perhaps at the expense of short-term profitability.

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7. Internal marketing: Finally, management should ensure that the brand is

marketed “internally” as well as externally. By this we mean that the whole

business should understand the brand values and positioning. This is

particularly important in service businesses where a critical part of the brand

value is the type and quality of service that a customer receives. Think of the

brands that you value in the restaurant, hotel and retail sectors. It is likely

that your favorite brands invest heavily in staff training so that the face-to-

face contact that you have with the brand helps secure your loyalty.

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Understanding what is brand equity

Over 21,000 new products were introduced in 2004 alone yet

history tells us that better than 90% of them won’t be on the shelf a year

later. Why such a high failure rate and why this been a historical trend. The

development of a successful product-, which includes the product, the

package, the product name and identity, is a challenging. But not

insurmountable task. The like hood for success can be greatly enhanced if

one focuses on certain critical issues. Clear product definition and proper

execution and implantation that definition can lead to success and longevity

in the market.

Through the 1980’s and 90’s there has been a growing corporate on

increasing shareholder value. Typical heading-grabbing story of these

decades have included waves of layoffs, corporate restructuring and an

emphasis on operating efficiencies.

One solution is to grow the brand. This serves to build consumer and

investor confidence in and loyalty to the company. A strong brand acts as a

promise, leading faithful customers to pay a premium over competitive

products. Like wise the stock of highly reputed companies’ trade at

premiums to other in their respective industries. The most important assets

of any business are intangible: the company name, brand, symbols, and

slogans, and their underlying associations, perceived quality, name

awareness, customer base, and proprietary resources such as patents,

trademarks and channel relationship

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These assets, which comprise brands equity, are primary sources of

competitive advances and future earning. Yet, research show that manager

cannot identify with confidence their brand association, level of consumer

awareness, or degree of customer loyalty. Moreover, in the last decade

manager desperate for short-term financial result have often unwittingly

damaged their brands through

Price promotions and un wise brand extensions, causing irreversible

deterioration of the value of the brand name.

Although several companies, such as Hindustan Lever Limited and other

companies have recently create an equity management position to be

guardian of the value of the brand names, far too few manager really

understand the concept of brand equity and how it must be implemented.

In a fascinating and unsightly examination of the phenomenon of

brand equity, it is extremely important to know how to avoid the temptation

to place short-term performance before the health of the brand and instead,

to manage brands strategically creating, developing and exploiting each of

the assets in turn, likewise companies can increase their new product’s

chances an d maximize the potential rewards, by understanding what their

target market desires. For instance, it’s tempting to short-cut market research

and rich a product idea to market.

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Large sum of money become invested in the process. Even if poor

consumers result occur, companies may continue on when they should

postpone or cancel the launch.

Companies must first listen to the voice of the consumer is a critical one to

hear but one that many firms have difficult in translating into products.

Many companies hear the words spoken by the consumers and work hard to

deliver on them but, as is often the case, what is says is actually meant (by

the consumer) may be very, very different.

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Branding and Brand Equity

In today’s environment, building strong brands establishing brand

equity is becoming more and more challenging. Increased pressure to

complete on price, increased competition through product introductions and

store brands, and the fragmentation of advertising and market segments are

just a sample of the pressure being faced by companies in today’s highly

competitive environment.

What is Brand Equity?

“Brand equity” refers to the value of a brand. Brand equity is based

on the extent to which the brand has high brand loyalty, name awareness,

perceived quality and strong product associations. Brand equity also

includes other “intangible” assets such as patents, trademarks and channel

relationships.

There are different definitions of brand equity, but they do have several

factors in common:

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: These are as follows

Monetary Value: The amount of additional income expected from a branded

product over and above what might be expected from an identical, but

unbranded product. For example, grocery stores frequently sell unbranded

versions of name brand product. The same companies produce the branded

and unbranded product, but they carry a generic brand or store brand label

like Hawkins. Store brands sell for significantly less than brand counterparts,

even when the contents are identical. This differential is the monetary value

of the brand name.

Intangible: The intangible value association with a product that cannot be

accounted for by price or features. Pepsi and coke have created many

intangible benefits for its product by associating them with film stars.

Children and adult want to consumer their product to feel some association

with this star. It is not the ingredients or the features that drive demand for

their products, but the marketing image that has been create. Buyers are

willing to pay extremely high price premium over lesser-known brands,

which may offer the same or better, product quality and features.

Perceived Quality: The overall perception of quality and image attributed to

a product, independent of its physical features. Mercedes and BMW have

established their brand names as synonymous with high- quality, luxurious

automobiles. Years of marketing, image building and quality manufacturing

have lead to perceive Mercedes and BMW as providing superior quality to

other brand name automobiles even when such a perception is unwarranted.

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In short, brand equity is asset of assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its

name, and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provide by the

product or service to a firm and/or that of firm’s customers.

The overall description of brand equity incorporates the ability to

provided added value to your company’s product and service. This added

value can be used to your company’s advantage to charge price premium.

Lower marketing cost and offer greater opportunities fir customer purchase.

A badly mismanage brand can actually have negative brand equity, meaning

that potential customers have such low perception of the brand that they

prescribe less value to the product than they would if they objectively

assessed all its attributes/features.

One of the examples of brand equity is in the soft drink industry. Without

a brand name and all of the marketing dollars that have gone into, coca-cola

would be nothing more than flavored water. Due to the company’s long-term

marketing efforts and protection, enhancement and nurturing of their brand

name, coke is one of the most recognizable brands the world. This includes

lost sales, lost marketing dollars and lost promotions, additional marketing

costs to promote a new brand, and significantly lower awareness and trial

rates forms their new brand.

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BRANDING PROMOTIONS

Developing a promotion as a brand can provide a powerful tool for

building

Additional brand awareness and positive associations. An excellent method

to achieve this is through linking the promotion to the actual brand. For

example, consider a promotion to win a trip to Disney world for a product

with no link to Disney world or travel. The contest participants will most

likely forget except the actual product associated with the prize.

Compare this with a company’s brand promotion that directly on the

association of the product thus power of the brand. A promotion such as this

affects non-participants as well as those inv loved, creating a platform to be

built on each year.

Furthermore developing a tight link between and the brand avoids the

possibility of promoting other brands. In effect, it is recommended to brand

a promotion so that it cannot a linked to anther brands.

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BRANDING IN GROCERY

Historically, traditional food items were the domain of small local

players. Grocery item earlier were sold loose and unbranded. Then some

progressive traders started the cleaning, grading and primary packaging. And

the next stage of development was branding so primary food such as Atta

(wheat flour). But those were mainly regional brands. Popular among these

were “rose” and Shakti bog” brands in northern India.

Whereas in traditional food items such as spice vand pickles there

were host of local brands with regional strong-holds such as spice power in

east “Bedkar” pickles in west, MDH-Masala in north east. The food

ingredient-nobody though of only food ingredients that was there tomato

purees and paste in cans which in the recent times godrej introduced in tetra

pack.

Edible oil in tin pack and later on in polyester jar and tetra pack

were the first major step in branding grocery item. Today we get Varity of

edible oils and Marco are the leading players in this sector. Amongst MNC’s

we have corn oil from COC and “Sun drop” from ITC agro—a sunflower oil

which subsequently has been acquired by CONAGRA- the fastest growing

food company in American.

The next major attempt to market a branded grocery item was done

about a decade ago by Tatas by introducing the first refined iodized salt in

poly bag by brand name “Tata Salt” and that was a success.

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The next big brand in this category is “Captain Cook” from DCW chemicals

that had plans in branded grocery items and thus the company introduced

other items including wheat flour under the same brand name. But that was

short lived.

During 1997 DCW chemical s suffered a major setback and the company

decides to divest this food business. The acquirer is Corn Product Co. (India)

Ltd-a wholly

Owned subsidiary of CPC-international a nine billion US dollar American

multinational in food and grocery business. The company recently changed

its name to Best Food ltd. CPC was a sleepy company operating in India for

over fifty years and their performance was lackluster. With their limited

range of Rex and brown and Polson brands of convenience foods globally

did not have any commitment in India? In late seventies and early eighties

when I was heading their project department many investment proposal were

send and notably among those were dextrose manufacturing project as CPC

has a flavored glucose brand in the portfolio and known soup project.

The third brand of salt is “Kissan Annapurna” which is making a

sustained effort to get market share. This brand which is now in Hindustan

level fold through brook bond acquisition who in turn acquired Kissan in

early nineties have reportedly spend Rs18 Crores in advertising and got 14%

market share in a Rs200 Crores branded salt category in a span of one year.

Tata salt still holds 26% market share and Captain Cook share is about 20%

and balance 40% is still with the small players.

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With the acquisition of “Captain Cook” in branded salt market MNCs are

the dominant players controlling 60% of the market.

The value addition in branded salt and pepper was really done

successful by a Delhi based local company hi tech Foods belonging to

Dharampal Satayapal of premium “Baba zarda” fame. Hi-tech Foods catch

brand of salt and pepper in dispenser pack is a success story with upper

middle class household and restaurant segments as the main customers.

The first MNC to get into the branded spice business was Brook Bond who

introduced the select premium priced spice range by name “Sona” in late

eighties. The products were priced and packaged for higher income group.

They struggled for couple of years to establish “Sona” brand but failed and

were forced to withdraw in later years.

The first MNC to introduce Indian pickles was Nestlé with their

Maggie brand. The products are still in the market. And as mentioned

earlier, the MNC to introduce traditional snacks is Pepsi under the umbrella

of “Leher namkins”. It can be concluded that in traditional Indian foods

MNCs cannot add much value through the involvement of their principle

aboard .on the contrary, they will have to learn from the locals to derive

advantage of their brand and resource muscle.

Hindustan Level is expected to enter branded grocery items though

Kissan rough in a big way. The company does significant export of branded

rice particular in Middle East market and therefore expected to introduce the

branded rice shortly in domestic market as well.

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Otherwise, in India so far branded package rice is limited to Basmati rice

and there are many brands in this category and leading among them is

“KOHINOOR” – but all are from small manufacturers. The grocery business

is basically low margins and high volume business and thus it required

multiple supply sources to be strategically located to reduce he cost of friend

and excellent distribution infrastructure and logistics management

capability.

Price and quality are expected to be the major determinate in the

success of grocery items and basic foods. Consumers in India would not be

willing to pay much as the price of convenience.

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CONSUMER PERCEPTION

Perception can be describe as “how we see the world around us.” Two

individual may be subject to the same stimuli under apparels the same

condition, but how they recognize them, select them, organize them, and

interpret them is a highly individual process based on each person’s one

needs, values and expectations. The influence that each of these variables

has on the perceptual process, and its relevance to marketing.

DEFINATION

“Perception is defined as the process by which an individual selects,

organized and interpret stimuli into a meaning full & coherent picture of the

world. A stimulus is any unit of input to many of the senses. Examples of

stimuli include products, packages, and brand names, advertising and

commercial. Sensory receptors are the human organ that receives sensory

inputs. All of these functions are called into play- either single or in

combination-evaluation and use of most consumer products. The study of

perception is largely the study of what we subconsciously add to or subtract

from raw sensory input to produce our own private picture of the world.

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PERCEPTUAL SELECT

Consumers subconsciously exercise a great deal of selective as to

which aspect of the environment-which stimuli-they perceive. An individual

may look at some things, ignore others and turn away from still others. In

total, people actually receiver perceive only a small fraction to the stimuli to

which they are expose

Nature of stimulus: marketing stimuli include an enormous number of

variables that affect the consumer’s perception such as the nature of the

product, its physical attributes,

the packages design, the brand name, the advertisement and commercial, the

position of a print ad or the time of a commercial and the editorial

environment.

Contrast: - contrast is one of the most attention- compelling attributes

of a stimulus. Advertiser often uses extremely attention getting device

to achieve maximum, contrast and thus penetrate the consumer

perceptual screen.

Expectations: - People usually see what they expect to see and what they

expect to see is usually based on familiarity previous experience or

preconditioned set in marketing context people tend to perceive product

and product attributes according in their own expectation.

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Motives: - People tend to perceive thing they need or want the stronger

the need the greater the tendency to ignore unrelated stimuli in the

environment. An individual perceptual process simply attunes itself more

closely to those elements of the environment that are important to that

person.

Important selective perception concepts: As the preceding discussion

illustrates, the consumer’s “Selection” of stimuli from the environment is

based on the interaction of expectation and motives wit the stimuli itself.

These factors giver rise to a number of important concepts concerning

perceptions.

SELECTIVE EXPOSURE : Consumers actively seek out messages

they find pleasant or with which they are sympathetic and actively

avoid painful threatening ones. Consumers also selectively expose

themselves to advertisement that reassures them of the wisdom of their

purchase decision.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION : Consumers have a heightened awareness

of the stimuli that meet their need or interest and an owner awareness of

stimuli irrelevant to needs.

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PERCEPTUAL DEFENSE : consumers subconsciously screen out

stimuli that are important to for them not to see even though exposure

has already taken place. Thus threatening or otherwise damaging

stimuli are less to be consciously perceived than are neutral stimuli at

the same level of exposure.

PERCEPTUAL BLOCKING : Consumers protect themselves from

being bombarded with stimuli by simply” tuning out”- blocking such

stimuli from conscious awareness. This perceptual blocking –out is

somewhat to the mechanical “zapping” of commercial using remote

controls.

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CONSUMER DECISION MAKING AND BUYING PROCESS

Marketing have go beyond the various influences on buyers and

develop an understanding of how consumers actual make their buying

decisions. Mainly the buyer plays these roles in buying decisions:

Initiator: a person who first suggests the idea of buying the product or

service.

Influencer : a person whose view or advice influences the decision.

Decider : a person who decide on any component of a buying decision.

Buyer : the person who makes the actual purchase.

User : a person who consumers or uses the product or service.

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Decision Making Process

Need Recognition: The buying process starts when the buyer

recognizes a problem or need. The need can be triggered by internal or

external stimuli. In the former case, one of the person normal needs –

hunger, thirst and sex- rise to a threshold level and become a drive. In the

relative case, a need is roused by an external stimulus.

Marketers need to identify the circumstances that trigger a particular

need. By gathering information from a number of consumers, marketers can

identify the most `frequent stimuli that spark and interested in a product

category. They can develop marketing strategies that trigger consumer’s

interest.

Information search : An aroused consumer will be inclined to search for

more information. We can distinguish between two levels of arousal. The

milder search state is called heightened attention.

At this level a person simply becomes more receptive to information about

a product.

At the next level, the person may enter active information search: looking

for reading material, phoning friend and visiting stores to about the product.

Consumer information sources fall into four groups

Personal sources: family, friends, neighbors

Commercial sources: advertising, salespersons, dealers,

packaging

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Public sources: mass media, consumers-rating organizations

Experimental sources: handling, examining, using the product

Each information source performs a different function in influencing

the buying decision. Through gathering information, the consumer learns

about competing brands and their features.

Evaluation of alternatives : There is no single evaluation process used

by all consumers or by one consumer in all buying situation. There are

several decision evaluation processes, the most current models of which see

the process as cognitively oriented.

Some basic concepts will help us understand consumer evaluation

processes.

First, the consumer is trying to satisfy a need.

Second, the consumer is looking for certain benefits from the

product solution.

Third, the consumers see each product as a bundle of attributes

with varying abilities of delivering the benefits sought to satisfy

this need.

Consumers vary as to which product attributes they see as most

relevant and the importance they attach to each attribute. They

will pay the most attention to attributes that deliver the sought

benefits the market for a product can often be segmented

according to attributes that are silent to different consumer

group.

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Purchase Decision: in evaluation stage, the consumer forms

preferences among the brands in the choice set. The consumer \

may also forms an intention to buy most preferred brand.

However, two factors can intervene between the purchase

intentions and the purchase decision. The first factor is the

attitude of the others. The second, factor is unanticipated

paituationalfactor that may erupt to change the purchase

intention.

A consumer’s decision to modify, postpone or avoid a

purchase decision is heavily influenced by perceptive risks. The

amount of perceived risk varies with amount of money at stake,

the amount attribute uncertainty and amount of consumer self-

confidence.

Post purchase behavior: after purchasing the product the

consumer will experience some level of satisfaction ort

dissatisfaction. The3 marketers job does not end when the

product is bought marketers must monitor post purchase

satisfaction; post purchase action and post purchase product

users.

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CONSUMER DECISION MAKING AND

BUYING PROCESS

Need Recognition

Information Search

Evaluation of Alternatives

Purchase

Post purchase Behavior

Cultural,Social,

Individual andPsychological

CHAPTER-2

Objective of the study

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OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To check the awareness level of consumers regarding branded

grocery items.

2. To study the perception of consumer about the packaged and

brands grocery items.

3. To know the place from where customer purchase branded items.

4. To know about the factor affecting a customer’s choice of

branded /unbranded items.

5. To know whether is there is impact of income level on the sale of

branded unbranded grocery items.

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Chapter –3

Research methodology

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RESEACH METHODOLOGY

Research Methodology is ways to systematically solve the problem.

The Research Methodology includes the various methods and techniques

for conducing a Research.” Marketing Research is the systematic design,

collection, analysis and reporting of data and finding relevant solution to a

specific marketing situation or problem”. D.Slesinger and M. Stephenson in

the encyclopedia of social sciences define Research as “the manipulation of

things, concept or symbols for the purpose of generalizing to extend, correct

or verify knowledge, whether that aids in construction of theory or in the

practice of an art.”

Research is, thus an original contribution to the existing stock of

knowledge making for its advancement. The purpose of research is to

disco0ver answer to the question through the application of scientific

procedures. Our project has specified framework for collecting data in an

effective manner. Such framework is called” RESEARCH Methodology”.

The research process followed by me consists of following steps:

o Defining the problem and research objective: it is said, “A

problem well defined is half solved”. The step is to define the

problem under study and deciding the research objective. The

objective of my research is to know the consumer perception

towards unbranded & branded grocery items.

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o Development the research plan: the second of this study consists of

developing the most efficient plan for gathering data.

o Sampling plan- A sample plan is a definite plan for obtaining a

sample from a given population. It refers to the technique or the

procedure the researcher would adopt in selecting sample items for the

sample. Sample plan may as well lay down the number of items to be

included in the sample. i.e., the size of the sample. The plan helps in

decision making in the following areas.

Universe: All customers of branded and unbranded grocery items

constitute the universe.

Sample size: this refers to the number of items to be selected from the

universe to constitute a sample. The size of sample should neither be

excessively large, nor too small, it should be optimum. The sample

size for my study is -100.

Sampling procedure: It is a way through which sampling is done.

There are various procedures like random, systematic etc. The

sampling procedure for my study is convenience sampling.

Research design: Descriptive in nature.

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o Data collection: information will be collected from both primary and

secondary data.

Primary sources: Primary data are those which are collected afresh

and for the first time. I have collected primary data by conducting

survey through Questionnaire, which includes both open ended and

close-ended Questions.

Secondary sources: Secondary data are those which already been

collected by someone else and which already had been passed through

the statistical process. I have collected secondary data has been

collected through Magazines, Web sites, and Newspaper.

Analysis of data and interpretations:

After collection of date the analysis of data has been done through

various statistical tools and techniques. The analysis of data

required a number of closely related operations such as

establishment of category, the application of these categories to raw

data through coding, tabulation and then drawing statistical

inferences.

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Chapter-4

Limitation of the study

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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

1. Due to constraints of time & financial resources, the scope of study is

limited to few customer of Jalandhar only.

2. Smaller sample may not always give better results. Sample may not be

true representative of the whole population.

3. The possibility of biased responses is ruled out.

4. Lack of availability of full information.

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DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION