CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter enlightens the overview of the research work. In order to provide the basement of
the research study, this introduction chapter consists the sections namely background of the
study, statement of the problem, objective of the study, significance and focus of the study,
limitation of the study and organization of the study. Each section is briefly elaborated as
follows.

Background of the study

Customer preference is a term frequently used in marketing. Peoples’ preference is the fact of
people liking or wanting one thing more than another. It is a general term connected to all
aspects of showcasing items and administrations. (Definition of Customer Preference, 2015) It is
a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer
expectation and encourage them to prefer the same product and service as compared to the
competitors. Clients exchange off among a few determinant traits. (E.g. value, holding up time,
quality). (Verma & Thompson, 1999) This article likewise offers proof that manager’s view of
client decision examples is not the same as client's real decision designs for the business we
inspected Faithful clients are principally imperative for aircraft organizations who remarkably
rely upon reliability to survive and succeed. Service quality measurement methods should mostly
focus on customer perception. (Urban, 2013) This proposal constitutes extending the integrated
measurement of service quality, which facilitates a deeper understanding of relationships
between processes and customer perceptions.

The worldwide economy can't work without air travel. The creators set the focus on the dialog in
the middle of carriers and traveler. Today, traveling long distances is a characteristic ramification
for people in the new globalized world, and something we underestimate. It is not hard to
envision the business sector opportunities that this requirement for transportation, in all
conditions of classes, opens for business performing artists. The carrier business yearly turns
over many billions of dollars, and keeping in mind the end goal to crush out each drop of
administration quality, it is essential to look to conform all of their business to flawlessness.
(Lindberg & Lofgren, 2009)

Introduction to consumer behavior

Consumer behavior is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select,
purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires
(Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard & Hogg, 2006). It is rather a good idea to call it a broad
perspective of marketing. Getting deeper into the consumers, their taste, their information
seeking process and the decision-making process is followed by the post purchase activities and
brand loyalty. Consumer behavior is the behavior that consumers display in searching for,
purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of the products and services that they expect will
satisfy their needs (Schiffman, O’Cass, Paladino & Carlson, 2014). Schiffman (2014) further
state that consumer behavior focuses on how individual consumers, families, or households make
decisions to spend their available resources on consumption-related items. Perner (2008) shades
light on the consumer behavior stating that the consumer behavior is the study of individuals,
groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of
products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes
have on the consumer and the society. Consumer behavior is the mental and emotional processes
and the observable behavior of consumers during searching, purchasing, and post consumption
of a product and service (Batra & Kazmi, 2004). In case of car purchasing, the consumers first
search for available information about cars (Which model to buy? What is the budget? Which
brand? Where to buy?) For this the consumers search for best possible alternative from the
available alternatives. The purchasing decision is made after evaluation of different alternatives
and the post purchase follows the purchasing behavior. So, consumer behavior is an overall
process starting from the identifying the needs to the purchasing decision and post purchase
activities.
The European perspective of Consumer behavior, categorizes consumers according to their age,
gender, income, or occupation. The description of the consumers differs in accordance to their
demographic characteristics. Especially the categorization of consumers helps marketers in many
ways. The information search of consumers is also different for different group of consumers.
For example, the young consumers prefer to search for the information on the internet and check
the reviews whereas the old consumers prefer to use the print media for searching information.
The personality and attitudes of consumers are important factors in defining consumer behavior.
This affects the search strategies and the ways of information search. Cultural norms and values
are other factors that define the behavior of consumers. Culture plays an important role in
deciding the buying behavior of consumers. The marketers also develop the market segmentation
which helps in deciding what products to sell for which group of consumers. Therefore, the
demographic characteristics, personal values, attitudes and personalities, social and cultural
characteristics define the consumer behavior in general (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard & Hogg,
2006).

Human beings are complex in nature that one's often do not seem to know their own minds.
That's why; it is not easy to generalize about human behavior. Each individual is a unique
product of heredity, environment and experience. Predicting such a strange behavior of people is
a difficult and complicated task, full of uncertainties; risks, and surprises. Nowadays, business
around the world recognizes that "the consumer is the king". Knowing why and how people
consume products helps marketers to understand how to improve existing products, what types
of products are needed in the market place, or how to attract consumers to buy their products.
The era of liberalization, privatization and globalization has brought changes in society and
lifestyle of people.

Consumer behavior may be defined as the decision process and physical activity individual
engage in when evaluating, acquiring, using or disposing of goods and services (London and
Della Bitta, 1993: 5)

"In general terms, a consumers' decision-making process is the selection of an option from two
or more alternatives choices. In other words, for a consumer to make a decision, a choice of
alternatives must be available. Not all consumers' decision making situations require the same
degree of information search. If all purchase decisions required extensive effort, then consumers'
decision making would be an exhausting process that left little time for anything else. On the
other hand, if all purchases were routine, then they would tend to be monotonous and would
provide little pleasure or novelty". (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2002:12)

"In a high involvement purchase, the consumer is prepared to invest more time, resources, and
efforts. In this situation, the consumer lacks full information about the product, the amount of
money involved is large, the product has high social importance, and the product is perceived to
give long run benefits whereas in a low involvement purchase, the consumer does not exert much
time, resources, and efforts. In this situation, the consumer is comfortable with the amount of
information he or she has about the product, the amount of money involved is small, the product
has low social importance, and it gives short-term benefits". (Koirala, 2057:15)

The initial stage of consumers' buying process is the need recognition and problem awareness
and it occurs when a buyer becomes aware of the fact that there is difference between desired
state and an actual condition. After becoming aware of the problem or need, the consumers (if
continuing the decision process) search for information regarding availability of brands, product
features, sellers' characteristics, process and other relevant aspects. Duration and intensity of
search efforts depends on buyers' experiences in purchasing and nature of the product to be
purchased. During this stage, however, consumers has developed evoked set i.e. the set of brands
of a product which the buyer actually consider while making a specific brand choice. (Narayan
and Markin, 1975: 17)

Generally, consumer behavior is influenced by four factors: cultural (culture, subculture and
socio class); social (reference groups, family and social roles and statuses); personal (age, stage
in the life cycle, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle, personality and self-concept);
and psychological (motivation, perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes) (Kotler, 2003: 198).
Research into these factors can provide clues to reach and serve consumers more effectively.

Marketers can justify their existence only when they are able to understand consumer's wants and
satisfy them. The modern marketing concept for successful management of a firm requires
marketers to consider the consumer as the focal point of their business activity. The buyer's mind
has been termed as a black box, which should be opened by the seller to be a successful
marketer. The study of consumer behavior also includes an analysis of factors that influence
purchase decisions and product use. The marketing managers can well formulate their marketing
strategy if they understand that how consumers make purchase decisions. For example, if a
manager knows through research that fuel mileage is the most important attribute for a certain
target market, the manufacturer can redesign the product to meet that criterion. If the firm cannot
change the design in the short run, it can use promotion to change consumer's decision making
criteria. For example, an automobile manufacturer can advertise as free motorbike servicing and
warranty for several years more than competitor manufacturer.

Changing of time influences consumer needs and desires. Hence consumer needs and desires
undergo change from time to time. In order to adapt business with changing pace of consumer's
needs and desires, it is essential for marketers to conduct research continuously. Realizing these
facts, business enterprises of advance countries have carried out a series of researches on
consumer behavior. However such practices of studying consumer buying behavior are rare in
our country.