The Indian consumer market, which is primarily dominated by young generation, is becoming increasingly sophisticated and brand conscious. This modern young consumer wants his purchases to reflect his lifestyle or at least the one he aspires for. As a result of this brand consciousness, like food, beverage, and accessories etc. apparel segment of the FMCG sector is also witnessing a paradigm shift in demand from loose to branded products.

In today’s scenario apparel segment has witness a tremendous shift in its demand, especially among young consumers in FMCG sector. Due to this increase in demand many new players entered in apparel industry, which attract the attention of researchers in this field Therefore this paper is focused on the buying behavior of the college going students. Teenagers’ share of expenditure in the Indian market is worth $2.8 billion (Rana, 2007); young consumers tend to be more involved with material possessions (Belk, 1988).Indian youths / college students as a market segment are emerged as of immense importance in terms of both, magnitude and spending capacity. The study evaluates the shopping behavior of local college students for apparel products in terms of psychological variables, store-choice variables as well as interpersonal influence. It was found that the college students and older customers differ in their shopping orientations and older customers not bargain-consciousness, need for variety and best quality, are more brand loyal, have higher price quality perception, price-consciousness, need for nearness and ambience than college students.

Different factors accounted for the influence on students for apparel purchase - parents having the highest influence followed by peer store approval, friends' influence and peer product influence.

It is necessary to understand the factors influencing apparel shopping behavior of college students especially in the changed scenario of increased organized retailing in India the nuances of the changed consumer needs to be understood well. The study would help to understand the apparel shopping behavior of local college students in general.

THE APPAREL INDUSTRY IN INDIA:

In India the key players in the branded apparel market are

Arvind brands, Madura Garments, Raymond ltd and Wills lifestyle. The brands marketed by Arvind brands are Arrow, Lee, Wrangler, and Tommy Hilfiger. Excalibur, New Port, Flying Machine, Ruggers. Louis Phillipe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly , and Peter England are by Madura Garments. Park Avenue, Parx, Manzoni, and color plus are marketed by Raymond ltd .Wills Classic, John Players and Springwood are marketed by Wills Lifestyle.

The apparel industry is one of India's largest foreign exchange earners, accounting for nearly 16% of the country's total exports. The 1996 Indian textile exports approximately amounted to Rs.35,000 crores of which apparel occupied over Rs14,000 crores. It has been estimated that India has approximately 30,000 readymade garment manufacturing units and around three million people are working in the industry. Today not only is the garment export business growing, enthusiasm in the minds of the foreign buyers is also at a high. Today many leading fashion labels are being associated with Indian products. India is increasingly being looked upon as a major supplier of high quality fashion apparels and Indian apparels have come to be appreciated in major markets internationally. The credit for this goes to our exporter community.

Consistent efforts towards extensive market coverage, improving technical capabilities and putting together an attractive and wide merchandise line has paid rich dividends. But till today, our clothing industry is dominated by sub-contractors and consists mainly of small units of 50 to 60 machines. India's supply base is medium quality, relatively high fashion, but small volume business.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

1. To evaluate the shopping behavior of college going students for apparel products.

2. To know the impact of psychological variables, interpersonal influence on buying behavior in apparel shopping.

3. To analyze the role of shopping group and friend group in purchase making process.

4. To determine the students preference towards branded apparel.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

The study briefly reviews the existing literature in the area of psychological variables affecting the shopping behavior. There are few common characteristics the different classifications of shoppers as proposed by different authors. Taylor suggested that quality clothing is worth a high price. Also product and quality consciousness fall in the same classification of shopping that is, price quality association. Hence the common categories of shoppers are the price-consciousness, and the price quality association. Sinha found that in the Indian context most purchases seem to planned by Indian apparel shoppers. Valencia H stresses on the influence of culture on shopping orientation. It is therefore, important to understand the shopping orientation, of college going apparel shoppers separately as the results of study conducted in other cultures are not expected to be applicable in the Indian context. This study invest the apparel shopping orientation, in particular on the psychological variables of price consciousness, bargain consciousness and brand loyalty in addition to some of the dimensions identified by an exploratory study like need based buying, frequency of purchase, window shopping before purchase, and shopping from multi brand stores Vs company stores.

With reference to store choice variables, Sinha indicates that the Indian shoppers on an overall basis give prominence to proximity of the store, merchandise and service provided by the stores and store dealing in apparels are also chosen based on ambience. As far as interpersonal influence is concerned, the role of companions in shopping plays a dominance role it proposed advice seeking tendency.

Demand for readymade garments in rural India is expected to increase at a CAGR of 16.5% during 2008-2010. Women's apparel market (in value terms) is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 17.79% till 2010. The organized apparel retailing in India is projected to surge at a CAGR of 30% from 2008 to reach Rs. 52,289 Crore in 2010. Increasing at a CAGR of 25%, branded apparel industry for women is expected to hit Rs. 18,351 Crore by 2010.

Branding more or less for centuries has been a mean to differentiate goods of one producer from those of another. Brand can be seen from two perspectives one from companies point of view and other from consumer’s point of view. The definition of branding as the promise of the bundles of attributes that someone buys and provides satisfaction. The attributes that make up a brand may be real or deceptive, rational or emotional, tangible or invisible.

HYPOTHESIS:

· 1. µ0 = Brand loyalty and quality does not have any significant influence on the buying behavior of apparel product of college students.

· 2. µ0 = Interpersonal factor does not have any significant influence on the buying behavior of college students.

· 3. µ0= There is no positive association with the reference group and shopping behaviour of students.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

A structured questionnaire was administered across college going students of educational institutes of Raipur city in Chhattisgarh. A sample size of 100 was taken and descriptive research design was used.

Variables:

Brand Consciousness

Price Consciousness

Friends' influence and peer product influence.

Data Analysis

A structured questionnaire is comprised of 100 questions. The questionnaire was pre-tested on students and final questionnaire was rolled out after the rectification based on the pre-test.

Chi- Square test was applied.

1. µ0 = brand loyalty and quality does not influence the buying behavior of apparel product of college student

µ1 = brand loyalty and quality influence the buying behavior of apparel product of college student

Table -1

Particular	Yes	No	Sometimes	Total
Brand loyal	25	15	10	50
Prefer branded cloth	35	10	5	50
Total	60	25	15	100

Calculate the value with chi-square

Find the expected value = Ei

1. Brand loyal

Yes = 50*60/100 = 30

No = 50*25/100 = 12.5

Sometimes = 50*15/100= 7.5

2. Change with changing trends

Yes = 50*60/100 = 30

No = 50*25/100 = 12.5

Sometimes = 50*15/100= 7.5

Table-2

Observed frequency (Oi)	Expected frequency (Ei)	(Oi-Ei)	(Oi-Ei)2/Ei
20	30	-10	3.33
15	12.5	2.5	0.5
15	10	5	2
35	35	0	0
10	12.5	-2.5	0.5
5	10	-5	2
Total			8.33

d.f = (c-1) (r-1)

= (3-1) (2-1)

= 2*1

Value of χ2 for 2 degree freedom at 5% level of significance is 5.991

The calculated value of χ2 is much higher than this table value which means that the calculated value cannot hold good.

Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected and an alternate hypothesis is accepted.

It means that brand loyalty and quality influence the buying behavior of apparel product of college student

2. µ0 = interpersonal factor does not influence the buying behavior of college students

µ1 = interpersonal factor influence the buying behavior of college students

Table -3

Particular	Yes	No	Sometimes	Total
Friend’s influence	20	15	15	50
Change with changing trends	25	10	15	50
Total	45	25	30	100

Calculate the value with chi-square

Find the expected value = Ei

1. Friend’s influence

Yes = 50*45/100 = 22.5

No = 50*15/100 = 7.5

Sometimes = 50*15/100 = 7.5

2. Changing with trends

Yes = 50*45/100 = 22.5

No = 50*15/100 = 7.5

Sometimes = 50*15/100 = 7.5

Table-4

Observed frequency (Oi)	Expected frequency (Ei)	(Oi-Ei)	(Oi-Ei)2/Ei
20	22.5	2.5	.278
15	7.5	7.5	7.5
15	7.5	7.5	7.5
25	22.5	2.5	0.277
10	7.5	2.5	0.833
15	7.5	7.5	7.5
Total			23.88

d.f = (c-1) (r-1)

= (3-1) (2-1)

= 2*1=2

Value of χ2 for 2 degree freedom at 5% level of significance is 5.991

The calculated value of χ2 is much higher than this table value which means that the calculated value cannot hold good.

Therefore, the null hypothesis is incorrect and alternate hypotheses are accepted.

That means that the interpersonal factor influence the buying behavior of college students.

RESULTS ON THE BASIS OF ANALYSIS:

1. The positive result implies that college students are more influenced towards branded clothing adoption. It is noted that there is a positive relationship between consumer involvement in apparel and brand attitude. The result shows that brand attitude highly correlate with consumer involvement in apparel compared to other elements. About 50% of the population preferred branded apparel, 30% prefer unbranded apparel.

2. The brand name is the most important factor when buying clothes. College students are more brands loyal especially the students who are in the 18-25 age group. It is analysed from the study that about 70% of the sample are brand loyal. Brand loyalty is concerned, it was found that the brand loyal consumers prefer stores near their homes and work places, realize the importance of paying higher price to get better quality and look for more variety and quality in stores while purchasing apparel Only few of them are brand switchers.

3. College students are more influenced by their Friend’s/peers/colleagues while purchasing apparel about 50% students are influenced by their friends while purchasing the apparel product whereas 30% are not influenced they take their own decision.

4. It was seen that 50% of college students change the demand according to the changing trends. Whereas 30% of the college students are not affected by the change in trends

5. Price is the most important factors among the purchasing criteria Respondent consider price is one of the important factors in purchasing; they would like to do frequent shopping rather than once in a month. Maximum, they try to avoid expensive apparel and try to compromise with something with similar style and less expensive. However, they spend good sum on fashion clothe shopping. The study shows that 40% of the college students are affected by price factor, whereas 30% of them are not affected by the of the apparel while buying

LIMITATIONS:

The study covers respondents in Raipur-Durg only. The consumers’ attitude may not be same in other towns and cities because of difference in preference, life style and buying patterns. As the sample size being limited (i.e.) 100, the conclusion may not be wholly applicable to the total market

CONCLUSION:

The study concludes that the college student are more brand loyal, they are more fashion conscious as they seek for new variety according to the changing trends..

Different factors accounted for the influence on students for apparel purchase - parents having the highest influence followed by peer store approval, friends' influence and peer product influence.

College students’ attitudes toward buying apparel in this study were directly influenced by the following factors brands, social factors, psychographics factors. Analysis of the collected data revealed that branded clothing, textile and fashion industry has a bright future in India. Indian fashion industry has taken steps to build up policy for the local brands as well as high apparel brands to adopt the trendy and fashionable clothing in the near future.

SCOPE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH:

There is a need to conduct research regarding personality characteristics of consumers and find their impact on the impulse buying behaviour in Raipur -Durg, for which differences can be compared if research is conducted separately in the groups of male and female consumers. This proposed research can bring to surface the true association of personality characteristics of the consumers having impulse buying behaviour and will also facilitate in identifying the main influential psychological factors accelerating the impulse buying behaviour in consumers and it will definitely help practitioners in improving their marketing strategies regarding products sales. Because impulse buying behaviour was strongly related to emotional/affective reactions and behaviour despite of the possible fact that it might have been more likely influenced by external factors, the type of influence/response was somewhat difficult to determine by the survey questionnaires. If consumers were aware of their responses to various situations, the influence of different factors/events could have been directly examined. Therefore, combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods (e.g. observational or experimental research methods) is recommended for future research.

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Received on 29.04.2012 Accepted on 08.05.2012

Asian J. Management 3(2): April-June, 2012 page 90-93