Brand Loyalty of Students towards Sports Accessories

 

Shaeril Michael Almeida¹, Arson Jokim D’Souza², Tenzin Dolma³

¹Associate Professor, Christ University, Bengaluru, 560029, India

^2,3Research Scholar, Christ University, Bengaluru, 560029, India

 

ABSTRACT:

In today’s world, sports have taken a significant position in the entertainment sector. Sports Accessories have taken this as an opportunity to diversify their product lines to reach out to a wider market of consumers. Sports-wear has become a fashion statement amongst the younger generation and their loyalty towards every brand differs based on factors like design, price, brand image, etc.  This study therefore, focuses on understanding the brand loyalty of the students towards sports Accessories, their buying behavior and the factors that influence these decisions. The population for this study is students in Bengaluru City and the responses have been elicited from 222 students. The responses were received through mailed questionnaires with multiple options to choose the appropriate response and Likert scale. The respondents’ data have been analyzed using statistic tools such as chi-square test, mean and standard deviation. It was found that the quality, price as well as the comfort level plays an important role in determining the brand loyalty in the sports Accessories. Also, the preferred place for having a good shopping experience was in retail stores.  

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

‘Sport has become a significant international currency”   Gradually, Sports has formed its industry through commercialization and due to its advent economic development. Sports brand has been well developed through sports industry. The sports products are closely related to the development of their commodities, experience and ornamentation, In order to meet the customer’s needs, and products were also created accordingly.

 

Along with good products, the brand image of the sport were constantly built and developed with fashion brands to make sports industry to led consumers to purchase the sports product eagerly. In many of the sports, the athletes’ wear different kinds of clothing such as sport shoes, shorts, shirts etc. and use different kind of sport accessories, but these days, Not only athletes use sports accessories but also people who exercise daily like yoga, gym and others also are in the usage of sports accessories. They use sports accessories as a protection and for comfort in different ways. Some use it for the repudiated brand also.

 

Branding on product is dominating the market and loyalty towards a particular brand by a consumer is considered to a very potential buyer as well as a loyal customer. Brand loyalty is a rising wonder in the commercial industry as well as it has a very sensitive and vital phenomenon. So the concept of brand loyalty takes vital role in a firm’s performance. Now most of the firms realize the importance and benefits of brand loyalty and its strategies. In order to evaluate the consumer purchasing behavior which helps in maintain growth sustainability and to improve the company’s performance in a highly competition market. Great priority is given by the sports organization in investing billions and billions on brand management strategies. Brand loyalty gains more customers and creates competitors difficult to enter in the market by expanding their businesses and generating greater sales and profits. Customers become stable and less vulnerable to the competitor’s products. With brand loyalty, there is reduction in marketing cost as increased in new customers through word of mouth and subsequently attitudes towards that particular brand.

 

This study examines the insights of gender perspective and throws light on, brand awareness, brand preference of young consumers in the sports accessories. It focuses on the differences in the shopping orientations of male and female shoppers with respect to the various buying behavior dimensions divided into different attributes. The results gathered can be a useful ingredient for the marketer to strategize on the basis of sport perspective.

 

LITERATURE REVIEW:

(Woo-seok Choi, 2012)This study examines, whether the physical environment had a direct impact on customer brand loyalty or not. With the help of regression analysis, it was concluded that, the sense of belongingness is a vital tool for the company. The company would meet various customers who flock to the stores, the purpose of visitation and the tailored services should be implemented according to the customer types. With the implementation of diverse flexible elements, appropriate pricing strategy and required physical amenities such as parking space and lockers to customers and also a psychological satisfaction played an important role in the customer brand loyalty.

 

(Hee Jung, 2012) This study examines whether the brand relationship is affected by behavioral brand experiences or not, it was concluded that the marketing managers of the company must implement important strategies in choosing the best brand experience thereby pursuing brand relationships. By implementing the best brand experience, it is certain that the brand loyalty of the consumer increases steadfast.

 

(Wu, 2015) This study focuses on customer’s attitude towards brand image and also whether it affected athletes’ endorsement on purchase intention. With the help of primary data collection and statistical tools it was concluded that brand image certainly has a positive influence on the purchase intention of consumers also on the athletes’ endorsement. Therefore, companies focus on building a strong brand image of the company by implementing the best strategies which affect the purchase intention of the customer. 

 

(Muhammad Ahmad, 2015) This study was conducted to find out whether the brand of a higher education institution has any effect on the student preferences. With a large amount of emphasis given on the higher education in today’s world, with a plethora of course options given to the students in the present generation. The study was concluded, with the help of interviews, that there is a positive relationship with the brand of an institution and the student preference and education as a whole.

 

(Wong Foong Yee, 2008) This study focuses on the factors that influence the brand loyalty towards sportswear. The factors such as, brand name, product quality, price, promotion, style, store environment and service quality are been used to identify the influence on sportswear. With the help of ANOVA and Pearson Correlation it was concluded that all the factors had a direct relationship with the brand loyalty, except for style which showed a negative relationship.

 

(John Bae, 2015) The shopping styles of the people play an important role in choosing the brand of a product. This article focused on decision-making styles of sports products and samples were collected from Japan, Singapore and Taiwan college students. The result showed that, the Japan students had a better brand consciousness when compared to Singapore and Taiwan.

 

(P.S.Venkateswaran, 2011). This study was conducted in Malaysia to study the brand loyalty of the Accessories. It concluded that due to the cut-throat competition in today’s world, there are six factors which influenced the brand loyalty they were mainly, brand name, product quality, price, promotion, service quality, and store environment. With an increase in the competitors, new companies enter the market with a variety of products and services offered to the customers, thereby decreasing the brand loyalty towards the brand.

 

(Cicek, 2012) This examination was conducted to see if social media has played any significant role in the brand loyalty of the consumer. The researcher made a conclusion that, the loyalty of the consumers has a direct impact and is positively correlated with the campaigns, the advertisements, the product appearing on various social networking sites and the popularity of the product. Therefore, social media has a direct impact on the brand loyalty of the consumer.

 

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

1.       To Understand the Brand Loyalty of students on sports Accessories.

2.       To understand the buying behavior of the students regarding Sports Accessories.

3.       To study the factors influencing students brand Loyalty towards Sports Accessories.

 

METHODOLOGY:

This study is conducted in the city of Bengaluru. 222 respondents were selected based on the convenience of the researcher. Data collected is analyzed using SPSS software; statistical tools like Chi-square test and descriptive analysis were used to analyze the data. Primary data was gathered through an online survey. The questionnaire was designed to question respondents about their brand loyalty for sports Accessories. The questionnaire was mailed to students randomly. The questionnaire used consisted of 17 questions. A five-level Likert Scale was used wherever applicable. The questionnaire was filled by respondents themselves. Responses of 117 female and 105 male were recorded to carry out our analysis.

 

Table 1: Hypothesis and Result

Hypothesis	table value	Calculated value	accept / reject
H0: The relationship between Education and preferred mode of shopping are not dependent H1: The relationship between education and preferred mode of shopping are  dependent	0.396 Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 1	0.315	accept the null hypothesis (Ho) and reject the alternate hypothesis (H1)
H0: The relationship between Gender and Brand Loyalty are not dependent H1: The relationship between Gender and Brand Loyalty are dependent	7.658 Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 4	0.105	accept the null hypothesis (Ho) and reject the alternate hypothesis (H1)
H0: The relationship between Gender and Spending on Sports Accessories are independent H1: The relationship between Gender and Spending on Sports Accessories are dependent	5.636 Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 8	0.688	accept the null hypothesis (Ho) and reject the alternate hypothesis (H1)
H0: The relationship between Quality of the Product and Brand Loyalty is not dependent H1: The relationship between Quality of the Brand and Brand Loyalty is dependent	13.102 Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 6	0.041	Accept the alternate hypothesis (H1) and Reject the Null hypothesis.
H0: The relationship between Price of the Product and Brand Loyalty is not dependent H1: The relationship between Price of the Product and Brand Loyalty is dependent	15.809Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 4	0.003	Accept the alternate hypothesis (H1) and Reject the Null hypothesis
H0: The relationship between comfort of the Sports Accessories and Brand Loyalty is not dependent H1: The relationship between comfort of the Sports Accessories and Brand Loyalty is  dependent	9.661 Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 4	0.047	Accept the alternate hypothesis (H1) and Reject the Null hypothesis.
H0: The relationship between Technology used and Brand Loyalty is not dependent H1: The relationship between Technology used and Brand Loyalty are dependent	6.399 Alpha = 0.05(5% Level Of Significance) And the degree of freedom d.o.f2. = 8	0.603	accept the null hypothesis (Ho) and reject the alternate hypothesis (H1)

 

 

 

Table 2: Results showing consideration of most important element when students choose sports accessories.

 

 

FINDINGS:

Percentage Analysis:

1.       Majority of the respondents belong to the gender female (52.7%).

2.       Most of the respondents are post graduated (59.9%)

3.       Most of the respondents prefer the brand Nike (33.8%) and Adidas (27.5%).

4.       Majority of the respondents purchase their preferred brand of sports Accessories from retail shops (68.9%).

5.       Most of the respondents purchased Footwear (62.6%).

6.       Majority of the respondents spends between          `.1000-.2000 for their sports Accessories (36.5%) and 2000-5000(32.9%)

7.       Majority of the respondents purchase the sports Accessories occasionally (54.5%).

 

CONCLUSION:

Brand preference is Nike and Adidas. The most commonly purchased sports Accessories is sports shoes, that too the frequency of purchase is less. The common place of purchase is retail stores. Education and brand loyalty are independent of each other, because all the respondents are students. Also both male and female students showed same buying behavior in-terms of brand loyalty. However there is a significance relationship between quality of the product and brand loyalty. The respondents are more loyal to the brand where they pensive the quality to be high. The brand loyalty and price also show a positive relationship. Students also associate comfort with brand loyalty. A high mean of 4.55 for comfort shows that the higher the level of comfort, the more is the brand loyalty.

 

REFERENCE:

1.        Cicek, I. E. (2012). the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1353 – 1360.

2.        Gradeuskaite, j. (2010). The advertising appeal of sports and the legal limits of the incorporation of sopts in advertising.

3.        Hee Jung, L. M. (2012). The effect of Brand Experience on Brand. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 87-98.

4.        John Bae, D. L.-A. (2015). East asian college consumer decision-making styles for sport products. Sport, Business and Management:An International, 259-275.

5.        Mathew, M. M. (2015). Brand Preference towards Sports Accessories. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 2(9), 316-318.

6.        Muhammad Ahmad, W. M. (2015). Antecedents of Education Brand: Analysis of Student Preferences . International review of Management and Business Research.

7.        P.S.Venkateswaran, N. U. (2011). A study on the influence of brand loyalty towards. Summer Internship Society.

8.        Rehman, A.-u. (2014). Impact of Customer satisfaction on brand loyalty- An empirical analysis of Home appliances in Pakistan. British journal of marketing studies, 18-32.

9.        Tsiotsou, R. H. (2013). Sport team loyalty: intergrating relationship markrting and hierarchy of effects. journal os service marketing , 458-471.

10.     WONG FOONG YEE, Y. S. (2008). Influence of Brand Loyalty on Consumer Sportswear. International Journal of Economics and Management.

11.     Woo-seok Choi, J.-s. a.-j. (2012). Effects of Physical Environment on Brand Loyalty and Moderated Effects of Brand Image. 57-61.

12.     Wu, C.-S. (2015). A study on consumers' attitude towards brand image, athletes’ endorsement, and purchase intention. International Journal of Organizational Innovation.

13.     Young Do Kim, M. M. (2012). Revisiting Sport Brand Personality:Scale Development and Validation. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research., 65-80.

 

 

 

 

Received on 16.12.2017          Modified on 30.12.2017

Accepted on 30.01.2018           ©A&V Publications All right reserved