CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS PRIVATE LABELS IN HOME HYGIENE PRODUCTS CATEGORY.

Abstract

This paper attempts to understand and highlight the buying behaviour of the consumers towards the Private Label (PL) products in Home Hygiene Products (HHP) in Belagavi. The growth of retail sector post globalization encouraged retailers to come out with their own multiple forms of products which are marketed by them but not manufactured. The resultant was the emergence of Private Label products in variety of segments. This paper tends to bring up the attributes of the consumers towards buying these PL products and tries to emphasize their buying behaviour. The current study aims to identify factors of PLs which have an impact on the consumers purchase intentions. The cleaning products and the products with chemical composition which are not for personal use are considered for the study. Consumers buying behaviour was analyzed with their intensions which influenced the purchase. The main motives behind the introduction of PLs were to fulfill customer needs and increase retailers profit share. The research attempts to examine the different factors that influence consumers' purchasing intentions of private label products among the residents at Belagavi area. Five important factors were identified; they are collectivist culture, perceived risk, price, quality and store loyalty. Collectivist culture and perceived risk were found out to be important background factors which affect the other three factors. Furthermore, the result shows that price and quality of private label brands are highly related as most of the target consumers tend to associate expensiveness with high quality and vice-versa. However, it was also seen that the store image has some effect towards the consumers being loyal (Belagavi residents) in purchasing the Private Labels.Key words Private label brands, manufacturer brands, collectivist culture, perceived risk, price and quality, store loyalty, store image.