the study of consumers’ attitude and behaviour...

THE STUDY OF CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDE AND

BEHAVIOR TOWARD RESTAURANTS UTILIZING

DAILY DEAL PROMOTION IN THAILAND

BY

MR. TANAPHUM SRINAWAKOON

AN INDEPENDENT STUDY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE PROGRAM IN MARKETING

(INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM)

FACULTY OF COMMERCE AND ACCOUNTANCY

THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY

ACADEMIC YEAR 2014

COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY

THE STUDY OF CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDE AND

BEHAVIOR TOWARD RESTAURANT UTILIZING

DAILY DEAL PROMOTION IN THAILAND

BY

MR. TANAPHUM SRINAWAKOON

AN INDEPENDENT STUDY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

OF MASTER OF SCIENCE PROGRAM IN MARKETING

(INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM)

FACULTY OF COMMERCE AND ACCOUNTANCY

THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY

ACADEMIC YEAR 2014

COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY

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Independent Study Title THE STUDY OF CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDE

AND BEHAVIOR TOWARD RESTAURANT

UTILIZING DAILY DEAL PROMOTION IN

THAILAND

Author MR. TANAPHUM SRINAWAKOON

Degree Master of Science Program in Marketing

(International Program)

Major Field/Faculty/University Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy

Thammasat University

Independent Study Advisor

Professor Kenneth E. Miller, Ph.D.

Academic Years 2014

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to analyze the consumers’ perception and

behavior towards restaurants utilizing online daily deal (ODD) as part of their

marketing activity. The study has been chosen to be an independent study topic which

focuses on contemporary topic in applied marketing. The result of this study will

provide restaurant businesses with valuable consumer insight that can essentially

assist them in deciding whether ODD is the right marketing program to pursue.

The survey techniques applied to this research are both qualitative and

quantitative approaches. The qualitative research has been conducted an in-depth

interview with 5 ODD consumers to gain preliminary understanding of the customer

insight and gather background information for designing the questionnaire.

Consequently, the quantitative research using the survey questionnaire has been

distributed to the target respondents in order to validate the key findings from

preceding stage. The sample selection used the convenience sampling concept.

Appropriate statistical analysis has been used to analyze the research findings.

From the result of the study, it can be concluded that consumers hold negative

perception towards the restaurants utilizing daily deals in term of quality of products

and services being offered through the program. Furthermore, consumers hardly pay

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beyond face value of the deal and hardly return to the restaurants for a full price

purchase.

Keywords: Online daily deal, Perception, Behavior, Restaurant

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Kenneth E. Miller, for

his guidance and encouragement throughout this whole project. His valuable

feedbacks and advices greatly helped developing and improving many aspects of this

report. In addition, I would like to extend my appreciation to all my friends and

family who have strongly support me in completing the project. Finally, I cannot

express enough thanks to MIM program and MIM director, Asst. Prof. Pannapachr

Itthiopassagul, for providing me with countless invaluable opportunities to learn

during these past two years.

Mr. Tanaphum Srinawakoon

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT (2)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (4)

LIST OF FIGURES (6)

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Online Daily Deal (ODD) 2

1.3 Research Objectives 2

CHAPTHER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1 Effect of Discount Pricing 3

2.2 ODD Situation in the US 3

2.3 ODD in Thailand 4

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 5

3.1 Exploratory Research 5

3.2 Descriptive Research 5

3.3 Sample Selection and Sampling Method 6

3.4 Data Collection 6

3.5 Activity Timeline 7

CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 8

4.1 Key Findings from Exploratory Research 8

4.2 Key Findings and Analysis from Descriptive Research 8

4.3 Limitations of Study 21

CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 22

5.1 Summary of Findings 22

5.2 Recommendations 23

REFERENCES 24

APPENDICES 25

Appendix A: Questionnaire Survey 26

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LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page 4.1: Gender of Respondents 8

4.2: Age of Respondents 8

4.3: Occupation of Respondents 9

4.4: Income of Respondents 9

4.5: Segment of Respondents 9

4.6: Gender of each segment 10

4.7: Age of each segment 10

4.8: Marital Status of each segment 11

4.9: Occupation of each segment 11

4.10: Monthly income of each segment 12

4.11: Frequency of dining at restaurants of each segment 13

4.12: Frequency in searching for online restaurant deal of each segment 13

4.13: Type of restaurant deals purchased of each segment 14

4.14: Preference for Specific Type of Restaurant 14

4.15: Lifestyle of each segment 15

4.16: Respondents’ overall perception towards restaurant 16

4.17: Segments’ perception towards restaurant 17

4.18: Respondents’ overall decision making criteria 18

4.19: Segments’ decision making criteria 19

4.20: Respondents’ overall behavior towards restaurant 19

4.21: Segments’ behavior towards restaurant 20

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

The rise of social commerce in Thailand has equipped business with new tool to

market their product and service over the past few years. Launched in 2009, Ensogo.com,

the first social commerce site which offers a pre-purchase discounting coupon or so-called

“deal” in Thailand, is currently number one in its category controlling nearly 90% share

with over 2 million subscribers.

Since the introduction of Ensogo.com, online daily deal has popularly become one

of marketing platform for many businesses in Thailand. Restaurant industry, especially,

finds this new platform to be efficient in raising awareness and bringing in new customers

in a cost effective manner. This is particularly true for those small-medium restaurants

hiding in the corner that cannot afford to go on mass media where cost and effectiveness

cannot truly be justified. Additionally, with an opportunity of up-sell or cross-sell, some

established restaurants see this as another way of creating regular customer traffic and

thereby generating constant stream of revenue for their businesses. Despite all these

attractive features, online deal controversially brings about negative impacts towards the

restaurant in a long run. This is due to the fact that online deal essentially involves a deep

cut in price of product or service which could potentially harm brand equity and customer

loyalty. Since price is strongly connected to quality in the consumers’ mind, a temporary

price reduction intended to increase awareness or bring in short term sales tend to create a

fixed image of inferior product quality and consequently make consumers begin to

perceive everyday price as being too high. This does not only increase price sensitivity

level of new consumers but also alienate current consumers who are willing to pay full

price for the product or service.

Although the negative effects of discount pricing on brand’s equity and customer

loyalty have been revealed and supported by many past researches, none has specifically

reported under the context of online daily deal in restaurant businesses. Therefore, this

research aims to study consumers’ attitude and behavior towards restaurants participating

in daily deal program in Thailand.

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1 1.2 Online Daily Deal (ODD)

Online daily deal provides businesses with a new platform to market their products

or services to the consumers. Daily deal sites offer heavy bargain pricing on products and

services for limited time, usually 3-5 days. The deals will be made available through

primary channel, the daily deal website, as well as other channels such as social media,

email and mobile application. Customers purchasing the deal are then received electronic

coupon to use with the business providing the product or service under specified term and

condition. From a business owner’s perspective, participating in a deal comes at no upfront

cost. The deal company takes a percentage or commission of each sale (up to 50%) and all

the business needs to do is to come up with a package to sell. This unlocks new

opportunity for many businesses with relatively small marketing budget to promote their

products and services to broader range of consumers. Although, online daily deal is

primarily designed as marketing tool for businesses, some businesses are reported to

constantly utilize it as a direct means in generating profit.

1.3 Research Objectives

• To comprehend overall consumers’ decision making criteria in purchasing online

discounted deal in food and beverage category

• To thoroughly understand attitude and behavior of consumers towards restaurants

utilizing online discounted deal in Thailand

• To provide recommendation based on research findings to restaurants which

currently or will potentially participate in online daily deal program

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Effect of Discount Pricing

Discount pricing has been known to be one of the most effective pricing strategies

in achieving short-term goal such as attracting new customers and driving sale. However,

using excessively, discount pricing evidently leads to adverse impact on consumers’

perception and behavior towards the brand in the long run. As price is strongly connected

with quality, distortion between the two will immensely affect the perceived value of

product or service. A deep or frequent price cut, especially, signals that the regular price of

product or service is highly inflated. Consumers then become conditioned to sale

promotions and stop purchasing full-price.

2.2 ODD situation in the US

Booming of daily deal market in the US during the past few years has led to many

studies contributing to the subject. Despite positive growth figures, some studies suggest

there is structural weakness of daily deal industry resulting in many shortcomings for

participated businesses. According to the research conducted by Rice University, many

customers who purchase daily deals are "price-sensitive deal-seekers" who are unlikely to

return to the business in the future without similar discounts. This can technically be

translated into loss of promotional dollars. The survey indicated that only 36% of

customers paid beyond the deal’s face value and 30% of customers actually returned for a

full-price purchase. Furthermore, less than half of businesses showed interest in running

another daily deal promotion in the future. Restaurants, in particular, indicated highest

dropout rate since only 20% of participated restaurants found daily deal promotion to be

sustainable marketing program.

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1 2.3 ODD in Thailand – Ensogo.com

Launching in 2009, Ensogo.com, has quickly become and remained the number

one daily deal site in Thailand with 90% market share, 10 million unique visitors a month

and 2.5 million subscribers. Taking aside group buying mechanism, Ensogo is essentially a

clone of Groupon in the US. Today, Ensogo offers over 300 active daily deals with general

discount rate between 50-90%. The deals are divided into 6 different categories namely

food & beverage, event, health & beauty, services, products, and travel. The most popular

category is Food & Beverage category which makes up to 40% of the total number of deals

offered followed by travel (35%), health & beauty (10%), products (10%), services (3%)

and event (2%). Furthermore, Ensogo boasts of having desirable members’ profile for

many types of businesses. 77% of their members are at the age of 25 and above. Of the

total, 59% are female (53% of which are single with expendable income and 47% married

with high household incomes)

As oppose to international researches reporting shortcoming of online daily deal,

Ensogo claims to contribute to a positive outcome for businesses in Thailand. Survey

conducted by AC Nielson indicated that 75% of customers who previously purchased and

redeemed the deal actually revisited for a full-price purchase. In addition to a high repeat

purchase rate, 65% of customers reported to pay extra when using the deal meaning

businesses can also be profitable through this promotional activity.

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CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research was divided into two phases: exploratory research and descriptive research.

3.1 Exploratory Research

3.1.1 Secondary Research

Researchers used several online websites, academic journals and research results as

tools to acquire general knowledge of daily deal industry and consumers’ attitude

and behavior toward participated businesses.

3.1.2 Qualitative Research

For qualitative data purpose, 5 in-depth interviews were conducted as to gain

insightful information of consumers’ attitude and behaviors towards restaurant

exercising online discounted deal. The obtained information was then used to

develop quantitative survey questions. The main target interviewees were frequent

daily deal buyers.

3.2 Descriptive Research

The target respondents of questionnaire were people who have made purchase on

daily deal website particularly in food and beverage category within the past three months.

Set of questionnaires were strictly developed according to the objectives and assumptions

that the researcher has formed based on the information retrieved during qualitative

research phase. The main purpose of conducting descriptive research was to validate key

findings from previous stage. Various types of questionnaires such as multiple choices (i.e.

ranking and rating) and open-ended questions were constructed. In order to gain the most

reliable data possible, researcher pre-launched questionnaires to obtain feedback of the

flow and detected any repetitive, unclear or loaded questions. In addition, short screening

questions were presented to eliminate any respondents who did not fit with the set criteria.

The questions mainly focused on attitude and behavior of consumers’ towards restaurants

offering online discounted deal. Demographic and psychographic of respondents were also

explored in order to establish potential link between variables.

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1 3.3 Sample Selection and Sampling Method

Target respondents for both exploratory and descriptive researches were people

who have purchased discounted coupon from daily deal website in food and beverage

category within the past three months. In this survey, non-probability sampling method

was employed in the sample selecting stage. The convenience sampling method was

applied to recruit 150 qualified respondents who reside in Bangkok and its vicinity.

3.4 Data Collection

In exploratory research, qualified participants for 5 in-depth interviews were

conveniently recruited using researcher’s personal contact. However, in order to

preliminarily gain insight from various types of consumers, participants for in-depth

interviews were chosen from people of diverse profiles. Recruited participants include 5

consumers who currently purchase discounted deal on restaurants. The interviews were

done on a face-to-face basis and via telephone. The in-depth interview took approximately

one hour and responses were recorded using audio recorder. Data collection from

exploratory research was then developed into a questionnaire survey and distributed in the

online channel.

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Data C

ollection

Exploratory Research

Conduct secondary research

Conduct in-dept interview

Descriptive R

esearch

Construct questionnaire

Launch questionnaire survey

Data A

nalysis

Analyse data w

ith SPSS

Final Report

Draft final report

Revise final report

Submit final report

AC

TIVITY

Decem

berJanuary

FebuaryM

archA

pril

3.5 Activity Timeline

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CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Key Findings from Exploratory Research: in-depth interview

Generally, with heavy discount offered, respondents perceive that they are able to

obtain something of extra values from purchasing daily deal. However, at the same time,

they feel that the regular price set by restaurants of being too high. Additionally, they

doubt the quality of food and service being offered to daily deal users to be somewhat

different from those of full-price purchase. They perceive that most new restaurants

participating in ODD as a means to primarily promote their restaurants and attract new

customers. On the other hand, established restaurants running ODD are sometimes

perceived to take advantage of ODD in directly generating profit and therefore signal

dishonest. Factors related to the discounted deal such as value of the deal, number of deals,

and term and condition dictate the perception of the users towards the restaurants and

contribute to the purchase decision of the users.

From their experience in redeeming discounted deal, they usually pay attention to

the amount spent and keep it within the deal value. They hardly return for a full-price

purchase, especially to those new restaurants.

4.2 Key Findings and Analysis from Descriptive Research: questionnaire survey

4.2.1 Respondent Profile

Figure 4.2: Age of Respondents Figure 4.1: Gender of Respondents

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Respondents were daily deal users living in Bangkok and its vicinity that had

purchased discounted restaurants deal within the past 3 months. The genders of

respondents were 62% female and 38% male with 15% aged less than 23 years old, 60%

aged 23-30 years old and 23% aged 31-46 years old.

Respondents were categorized into 6 occupation groups with majority being

corporate employee (48%), student (18%) and business owner (11%). Personal income of

all respondents ranged from less than 15,000 THB to 65,000 THB.

Respondents were then divided into heavy users, medium users and light users on the basis

of number of deals purchased each month.

• Heavy User (35 out of 150): make purchase of more than 4 different discounted

restaurant deals per month

• Medium User (68 out of 150): make purchase of 2-4 different discounted restaurant

deals per month

• Light User (47 out of 150): make purchase of less than 2 different discounted deals

per month

Figure 4.5: Segment of Respondents

Figure 4.4: Income of Respondents Figure 4.3: Occupation of Respondents

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1 4.2.2 Respondent’s Segment Profile

• Demographic of each segment

There was no significant difference in the proportion of gender in each of the

segments. Male presented as a minority in all segments with a ratio of approximately 3:2

(female : male). This followed the same proportion of overall respondent’s profile.

Surprisingly, there was a clear different in age for each of the segment. Almost half

of the light user (44%) has age of over 31. In contrast, approximately 85% of both medium

user and heavy user are those with age of less than 30.

Figure 4.6: Gender of each segment

LIGHT USER MEDIUM USER HEAVY USER

Figure 4.7: Age of each segment


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Generally, marital status followed the same pattern as that of the whole respondent

group by having single completely dominated that of married. However, heavy user

showed slight deviation from other segments presenting only 14% of married respondents

versus 26% and 22% in light and medium user respectively.

Corporate employee represented the largest group in all segments. However, there

presented difference in the occupation structure in each of the segment. The secondary

group of light user was business owners (17%) while medium and heavy users were

students (19% and 26% respectively). Another major difference was the proportion of

house-spouse in heavy user which was significantly higher than the other two segments

(17% compared to 6% in medium and 2% in light user).

Figure 4.8: Marital Status of each segment


Figure 4.9: Occupation of each segment


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The different structure of monthly income in each of the segment above suggested

that there existed a significant difference in income level across all segments. According to

the chart above, light user was shown to have, on average, higher income than the other

two segments. It can be noticed 35% of light user had monthly income of over 35,000 baht

comparing to 25% in medium and 15% in heavy user. Interestingly, majority of heavy

users (70%) has monthly income of 25,000 baht and lower. This indicated that heavy user

has the lowest average income followed by medium user and light user.

In summary, there was a clear difference in demographical data for each of the

segments. This included age, occupation and monthly income which were all highly

correlated with one another.

Figure 4.10: Monthly income of each segment


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• Characteristic of each segment

Above chart indicates the frequency of each segments dining at the restaurants. It

can be observed that there was a significant difference in the proportion of restaurant

dining frequency across the three segments. Apparently, higher proportion of heavy user

dined at the restaurant more frequently than that of other segments (26% reported to dine at

restaurant 5-7 times per week). This followed by medium and light users respectively.

Correlating with the frequency of ODD purchase, high user obviously spent more

times in searching for ODD compared to the other two segments. Almost 90% of light

users searched less than or equivalent to 2 times per week for ODD while 70% of high

users looked for ODD 3-7 times per week.

Figure 4.11: Frequency of dining at restaurants of each segment


Figure 4.12: Frequency in searching for online restaurant deal of each segment


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All type of users tended to purchased dollar promotion rather than item promotion.

However, strong disproportion in purchasing dollar and item promotions presented in

medium and heavy user segments where majority of these users were shown to purchase

dollar promotion (65% of medium users and 77% of high user).

There was no significant difference across segments in term of preference for

specific type of restaurants that they look to purchase. Generally, half of the people did

seek for specific type of restaurant to purchase ODD with and half did not.

Figure 4.13: Type of restaurant deals purchased of each segment


Figure 4.14: Preference for Specific Type of Restaurant (i.e. Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Buffet,


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From the comparison chart, it can be seen that each of the segment valued

different things and led relatively different lifestyles. For instance, heavy user clearly stood

out in many aspects such as often dining out at restaurants, choosing food by oneself and

like meeting new people. Light user, on the other hand, showed the opposite of those high

users. Additionally, light user tended to pay special attention to quality of food and service

more than the other two segments. Unlike heavy user, they relatively did not like to go out

and try new things.

Figure 4.15: Lifestyle of each segment

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1 4.2.2 Data Analysis

The statistical tools used to analyze quantitative data from questionnaire survey

include the measure of frequency and central tendency, cross-tabulation, independent t-

test, and Anova. With a complete quantitative data at hand, the data was first divided into

three distinct groups: heavy user, medium user and light user. Analysis was then run

separately on these three groups in accordance to their respective data.

To see the overall picture of consumer’s perception and behaviors towards

restaurants utilizing ODD, statistical data was first analyzed and presented by taking the

whole 150 samples. The data would then be divided according to the segment of high-,

medium- and light users to further study similarities and differences across segments.

Consumers’ Overall Perception

Bar chart above illustrates overall perception of 150 respondents towards

restaurants offering ODD. It can be observed that ODD consumers perceived restaurants

utilizing ODD as part of their marketing activity to promote the names of restaurant. This

perfectly aligns with the objective of both the ODD provider and most of restaurant

owners. Nevertheless, consumers also strongly perceived that restaurants incorporate ODD

in their daily operation to manage demand and generate constant revenue for their

Figure 4.16: Respondents’ overall perception towards restaurant

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1 businesses. This type of perception can potentially link to other negative views towards the

restaurants.

As seen from the chart, consumers also believed that by using ODD, they are not

getting the same quality of food and the same level of service to that of full-price purchase

from the restaurant. Furthermore, consumer perceived that restaurants utilizing ODD

overprice their food.

It is also worth noting that in consumers’ perception, the number of deals sold and limited

deals reflect the quality of that particular restaurant.

Consumers’ Perception: Comparison between heavy user, medium user and light

user

Figure 4.17: Segments’ perception towards restaurant

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Chart above compares the perception towards restaurant utilizing ODD between

three groups of consumers: heavy user, medium user and light user. Three groups shared

similar view on certain aspects such as the perception of quality of the restaurants with

respect to the number deals sold and offered. Additionally, they all perceived restaurants

offering ODD to overprice the food.

Despite certain level of agreement between the three groups, there were certain

aspects existed the significant statistical different among the three groups. Light users tend

to have the most negative perception towards restaurants utilizing ODD. This can clearly

be seen from the chart where light users obviously perceived restaurants using ODD to

mainly sustain their business which can potentially connect to other aspects such as the

perception on the dishonesty of restaurant, the quality of food and service being offered.

Overall Consumers’ Decision Making Criteria

Chart above indicates level of importance of the 6 major factors that consumers

take into account when making purchase of discounted restaurant deals. As illustrated in

the chart, value of the deal was placed as the primary factor that consumers consider

followed by redemption term and condition and reputation of the restaurant. Interestingly,

out of the 6 factors, customer’s review plays the least role in enticing the purchase of

restaurants’ deals.

Figure 4.18: Respondents’ overall decision making criteria

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1 Consumers’ Decision making criteria: Comparison between heavy user, medium user

and light user

The chart compares decision making criteria between three groups: heavy user,

medium user and light user. The three groups generally share similar trait when making the

purchase decision on the ODD from restaurants. There were however two notable points

where the three group were statistically different from one another. Unlike other two

groups, light users paid most attention to the reputation of the restaurant offering ODD

when making the purchase while heavy users focused on the value of deal being offered.

Overall Consumers’ Behavior

Figure 4.20: Respondents’ overall behavior towards restaurant

Figure 4.19: Segments’ decision making criteria

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The chart above shows the behavior of consumers before and after making

purchase of discounted restaurant deals. It can be seen that consumers chose to purchase

restaurant deals from new restaurant in order to try new thing. Through the process of

purchasing, consumers compare all alternative available. It is important to note that the

association of purchasing behavior which based on discounted value, term and condition

and the reputation of restaurants with the decision making criteria discussed above. The

post purchase or deal redemption behavior indicated bad news to the restaurant offering

ODD as most consumers hardly pay beyond the face value of the deal or revisit for a full-

price purchase.

Consumers’ Behavior: Comparison between heavy user, medium user and light user

Figure 4.21: Segments’ behavior towards restaurant

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The chart illustrates the comparison in behavior of consumers from three different

groups: heavy user, medium user, and light user. The three groups shared common post-

purchase behavior in not revisiting restaurant for full-price purchase and paying within the

face value of the deal. Heavy users were shown to purchase the deal mainly based on the

discount value while light users made their purchase prioritizing on the familiarity and

reputation of restaurant.

4.3 Limitations of the Study

4.3.1 Time Constraints

The research was scheduled to be conducted in a very short timeframe so the

preplanned exploratory research was needed to be restructured. Similar limitation applied

to descriptive research. The questionnaire survey was primarily planned to be conducted

offline but due to low response rate, questionnaire was unavoidably distributed online as

well to spread coverage and recruit more respondents in the limited timeframe.

4.3.2 Limitations of Sample

As convenience sampling technique was adopted in this survey, data collected

might not accurately represent the population of interest.

4.3.3 Reliability of Data

As all questionnaire survey were conducted and obtained from online channel,

researcher has limited control over the quality of the response. In addition, some questions

may obtain to inquire for some personal information that could cause respondents to feel

uncomfortable to provide the answer. However, the researcher still could not guarantee for

the valid data that were provided by the respondents.

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CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

5.1 Summary of Findings

PERCEPTION

From the research, it was found that overall consumers’ perception towards

restaurants utilizing ODD as part of their marketing tool to be mostly negative. Though

understanding of the objective of the restaurants for using ODD as part of their marketing

activity was well received by the consumers, they still perceived the ODD itself to be

untruthful marketing activity which affects the participated restaurants. The major negative

perceptions included dishonesty with respect to the quality of the food and service being

offered through ODD program, the unfair term and condition applied and overprice of the

regular menu. These all could bring about the adverse impacts to the participated restaurant

as it could create a fixed negative image of the brand.

Having studied further into different segments (heavy user, medium user and light

user), it was found that despite the fact that each of segments hold slightly different

perception in some aspects, they generally formed the same negative perceptions towards

the restaurants whom utilize ODD. However, restaurants, to certain extents, can potentially

manage perception of heavy users who did not only show the least hostile perception

towards restaurants running ODD but also the one who regularly make purchase of ODD.

DECISION MAKING CRITERIA

The three key decision criteria in making the purchase of ODD included the

discounted value, the term and condition and the reputation of the restaurants. As

consumers showed to prioritize the discounted value of ODD, this indicated that ODD

mainly brings in non-loyal price-sensitive consumers who make purchase decision

primarily on price.

All segments shared generally the same criteria in making purchase decision on

ODD. As the value discounted stood as the number one criteria across all segments, this

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confirms the inherent weakness of ODD in attracting price-sensitive consumers who

generally focused on the lowest price possible.

BEHAVIOR

The behavior of consumers towards restaurants utilizing ODD reflected that of their

purchase decisions. Survey suggested that consumers purchased ODD as a mean to try new

things at the discounted price. Additionally, consumers hardly pay beyond the deal’s value

and returned for a full-price purchase.

Again, since all segments shared generally the same perceptions, the behaviors of

each segment also follow the same pattern.

5.2 Recommendation

As the research suggests that consumers tend to form negative perception and

consequently behave unfavorably towards restaurants running ODD program, restaurants

who consider take part in ODD therefore need to keep in mind these perceptions of

consumers and carefully manage or find ways to shift these perceptions by communicating

and providing them with an honest and transparent offer. A positive perception can then

potentially lead to the change of consumers’ behavior.

However, since the research strongly suggested the inherent weakness of the ODD

platform itself. Restaurants are therefore recommended to choose other marketing

activities to promote themselves which do not involve the deep discount pricing.

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REFERENCES

• Pisek, C. (n.d.). Case Study: Ensogo. Retrieved November 29, 2014, from

http://doctorpisek.com/2014/01/21/%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%93%E

0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A8%E0%B8%B6%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A9%E0%B8%

B2-ensogo/

• KResearch Center. (n.d.). Daily deals, new marketing tool for business. Retrieved

November 29, 2014, from

http://startup.ksmecare.com/Article.aspx?mid=53&articleid=328

• Ensogo. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from

http://www.ensogo.com/about

• The impact of discounting on brand equity – how to avoid the quicksand. (n.d.).

Retrieved December 14, 2014, from

http://www.killianbranding.com/whitepaper/discounting/

• Watkins, D. (n.d.). What Is Discount Pricing Strategy?. Retrieved December 17,

2014, from

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/discount-pricing-strategy-794.html

• Utpal M. Dholakia. How Businesses Fare With Daily Deals As They Gain

Experience. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from

news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-05-DailyDeals.pdf

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APPENDICES

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APPENDIX A

QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

PART 1: SCREENING QUESTION

1.1 Have you ever purchased online restaurant deal/coupon? [User and Non-User]

[ ] Yes

[ ] No, …………………(please state why)

PART 2: GENERAL INFORMATION

2.1 Which of the following daily deal website do you mostly visit?

[ ] Ensogo

[ ] Groupon

[ ] Others

2.2 How many times per week do you dine at the restaurants?

[ ] less than once a week

[ ] 1-2 times per week



2.3 How frequently do you search for online restaurant deal?

[ ] less than 1 time/week

[ ] 1-2 times/week

[ ] 3-4 times/week

[ ] 5-7 times/week

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1 2.4 On average, how many online restaurant deals do you purchase each month?

[ ] Less than 2

[ ] 2-4

[ ] More than 4

2.5 What type of online restaurant deal do you mostly purchase/prefer?

[ ] Dollar promotion

[ ] Item promotion

2.6 Do you usually look for specific type of restaurant to purchase the deal?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

2.7 If yes, which of the following type of restaurant do you normally make your

purchase? [Multiple answers]

[ ] Thai

[ ] Japanese

[ ] Korean

[ ] Chinese

[ ] International (Italian, French, etc.)

[ ] Hotel Buffet

[ ] Chained Restaurant

[ ] Others

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1

PART 3: PERCEPTION

3.1 Please rate the following statement based on your level of agreement using 5-point

scale [1-Strongly Disagree, 2-Somewhat Disagree, 3-Neutral, 4-Somewhat Agree and

5-Strongly Agree]

Strongly Disagree

Somewhat Disagree Neutral Somewhat

Agree Strongly

Agree

3.1.1 Restaurants offer online deal to solely promote their restaurant 1 2 3 4 5

3.1.2 Restaurants offer online deal to temporarily generate customer traffic and earn extra income

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.3 Restaurants exploit online deal as another main source of their revenue

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.4 Restaurants offering online deal are ones having hard time keeping their business

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.5 I perceive restaurant offering deal to be somewhat dishonest through set of term and condition

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.6 Quality of food being offered through discounted deal is the same to that of full price purchase

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.7 Service being offered to customer utilizing discounted deal is the same to that of full price purchase

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.8 I perceive restaurants offering online discounted deal to overprice their food (i.e. the normal everyday price is too high)

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.9 Restaurants offer limited online deals are ones with higher standard of food and service

1 2 3 4 5

3.1.10 The higher the number of deals sold, the better the quality of the restaurant deal

1 2 3 4 5

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1 PART 4: DECISION MAKING CRITERIA

4.1 Please rate the following attributes according to their level of important on your

purchase decision using 5-point scale [1-Strongly Disagree, 2-Somewhat Disagree, 3-

Neutral, 4-Somewhat Agree and 5-Strongly Agree]

Not at all important Very

important

4.1.1 Value of the Deal 1 2 3 4 5

4.1.2 Location of Restaurant 1 2 3 4 5

4.1.3 Redemption Term and Condition 1 2 3 4 5

4.1.4 Reputation of Restaurant 1 2 3 4 5

4.1.5 Limited number of deals 1 2 3 4 5

4.1.6 Customer's Review 1 2 3 4 5

PART 5: BEHAVIOR

5.1 Please circle the number that best describe your behavior using 5-point scale [1-

Strongly Disagree, 2-Somewhat Disagree, 3-Neutral, 4-Somewhat Agree and 5-

Strongly Agree]

Strongly Disagree

Somewhat Disagree Neutral Somewha

t Agree Strongly

Agree

5.1.1 I purchase online restaurant deal based solely on the discount being offered

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.2 I only purchase online deal for restaurant that I have experienced or I am familiar with

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.3 I purchase online restaurant deal based on customers' review

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.4 I purchase online restaurant deal only from well-known restaurants

1 2 3 4 5

29

1 5.1.5 I purchase online restaurant deal based on the number of deals that get sold

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.6 I purchase online restaurant deal based on term and condition applied

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.7 I purchase online deal in order to try out new restaurant or new menu being offered

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.8 I usually look through all restaurant deals available and compare them prior to my final purchase

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.9 I usually buy multiple restaurant deals at once 1 2 3 4 5

5.1.10 I normally pay beyond the face value of coupon upon redeeming at the restaurant

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.11 I usually revisit the restaurant offering discounted deal for a full-price purchase

1 2 3 4 5

5.1.12 I usually redeem the restaurant deal on time 1 2 3 4 5

PART 6: RESPONDANT PROFILE

6.1 Gender

[ ] Male

[ ] Female

6.2 Age

[ ] Less than 23

[ ] 23-30

[ ] 31-46

[ ] More than 46

30

1 6.3 Status

[ ] Single

[ ] Married

[ ] Divorce

[ ] Widowed

6.4 Occupation

[ ] Student

[ ] Corporate Employee

[ ] Own business

[ ] Government officer

[ ] Freelance

[ ] House-spouse

[ ] Unemployed

[ ] Retirement

[ ] Others

6.5 Personal income per month

[ ] Less than 15,000 THB

[ ] 15,000 – 25,000 THB

[ ] 25,001 – 35,000 THB

[ ] 35,001 – 45,000 THB

[ ] 45,001 – 55,000 THB

31

1 [ ] 55,001 – 65,000 THB

[ ] 65,001 - 75,000 THB

[ ] More than 75,001 THB

6.6 To what extent do you agree with each of the following statements. Please indicate

your answer using the 5-point scale [1-Strongly Disagree, 2-Somewhat Disagree, 3-

Neutral, 4-Somewhat Agree and 5-Strongly Agree]

Strongly Disagree

Somewhat Disagree Neutral Somewha

t Agree Strongly Agree

6.6.1 I like to spend time at home 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.2 I like to meet people 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.3 I usually surf internet 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.4 I like to try out new thing 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.5 I often choose food for myself 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.6 I like to dine out at the restaurant 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.7 I often look for special sale promotion 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.8 I pay attention to the quality of food 1 2 3 4 5

6.6.9 I value service provided by the restaurant 1 2 3 4 5

32

33

BIOGRAPHY

Name Mr. Tanaphum Srinawakoon

Date of Birth October 3rd, 1989

Educational Attainment

2011: Bachelor Degree in Electrical and

Electronic Engineering, The University of

Nottingham

Work Experiences 2012-2013: Quality Engineer

Toyota Motor Asia Pacific Engineering and

Manufacturing

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the study of consumers’ attitude and behaviour...

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