Consumer Preferences and Purchase Decision-making for Micro-packs— An Empirical Study

Abstract

This study offers and validates a comprehensive approach to explain and predict the beliefs influencing consumer needs and the motivations behind their purchase decisions. The study aims at understanding the consumers purchase intentions on the basis of responses given by the respondents. In order to attain these objectives, a sample of 500 respondents belonging to three cities of Punjab: Jalandhar, Amritsar and Ludhiana; and Union territory of Chandigarh was drawn. Non-probability convenient sampling was adopted for selecting the respondents. It was however found that reasons such as ‘a big pack is difficult to store’ and ‘difficult to handle’ primarily lead them to prefer a micro-pack. ‘Advertisement on print and electronic media’ was the most preferred source of information and ‘past performance’ of a micro-pack was the most significant attribute while making a purchase decision. ‘Wide assortment of a single brand’ emerged as the most persuasive effort undertaken by retailers for building customers perceptions towards a brand. A store that was the most ‘Neat and tidy’ was the most favoured one. Respondents expressed that in case of an unfortunate purchase, they preferred to ‘forget about it’ and switched to another brand when they were ‘impressed by the advertisement of a new brand’.