Psychographic Profiling of Professional Women:Development and Factor Analysis of Items for a Questionnaire

Abstract

Purpose: As a part of a larger study to profile women online shoppers of FMCG /grocery in Bangalore city it was found that there were no instruments available to profile professional women psychographically. The purpose of this study is to develop a set of items for a self administered questionnaire to profile professional women along psychographic attributes. Research design and methods: Attributes of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles were derived from a focus group discussion with group of eight professional women to arrive at a 28 item questionnaire. Each item was analysed on a five-point Likert scale so as that higher item scores indicated a higher disposition towards that particular attribute. Responses were solicited online through email and also by administering questionnaires to randomly selected professional women. A total of 151(68 online and 83 offline) were evaluated and subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. Meaningful factors were retained and interpreted based on their psychometric properties. Results: Exploratory factor analysis suggested a five factor solution accounting for 59.9% of the cumulative variance and all the sub scales had 'acceptable 'reliability (Cronbach alpha greater than 0.6) Practical Implications :The study has practical implications for grocery/FMCG online retailers for better understanding the shopper behavior in the context of changing consumer psychographic characteristics in an emerging Indian online grocery/FMCG market. The findings may help the online retailers to segment and target the grocery/FMCG consumers and as a consequence, to undertake more effective online retail marketing and advertising strategies for competitive advantage. Originality/value-Given the absence of published academic literature and empirical findings relating to psychographic profiling of women professions, this study may serve as a departure point for future studies in this area of concern. The research is also relevant to online marketers in terms of format development and reorientation of marketing strategies in the fast growing consumer segment Indian online grocery/FMCG market.