INTRODUCTION:

Consumer decision making is “ The process of making purchase decisions based on cognitive and emotional influences such as impulse, family, friends, advertisers, role models, moods and situations that influence a purchase” (Solomon, 2005).

Consumer decision making is the process through which consumer takes decision for purchasing commodities or services with the influence of various factors like reference groups, marketers, family etc. There are three main steps in the process of consumer decision making for purchasing a product. They are input stage, process stage and output stage. Input stage is the first and primary stage where, consumer is influenced by external factors. In the input stage, one important factor is the psychological factor, depending on that the influence of different factors is different for different consumers. Second stage is the process stage and in this stage, after recognising the need for a product, consumer searches information related to the product about various alternatives of the product and its brand that is evaluation is made for various brands of the product. These two stages come under the pre-purchase behaviour of consumer (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2008). There are five stages in the model of complex decision making and they are need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase and post purchase evaluation. So, the pre-purchase behaviour includes need recognition, information search and evaluation of alternatives (Assel, 2005). The acts of purchasing and post purchase evaluation come under the output stage. The present chapter captures the pre-purchase decision making behaviour of household for Mobile Phone, Electric Fan, Television and Refrigerator.

The factors influencing on the consumer while searching information which comes under the process stage for purchasing a product can be divided into personal sources, commercial sources, experiential sources and public sources. Here the commercial sources include advertising, salesperson, internet, packaging, displays. The relative influence of these factors differs accordingly with product category and the influence also differs with person to person (Onassis, 2005).

So, we can conclude that the pre-purchase decision making behaviour is a part of consumer behaviour. Consumer behaviour is the way through which a consumer behaves before purchasing, at act of purchasing and after purchasing of a commodity or service. The study of consumer behaviour includes the way through which consumer recognises the need for a commodity or service, searches information related to that, evaluate the alternatives, purchases and realise the satisfaction or dissatisfaction from the use after purchasing. On the basis of these the factors influencing in the purchase decision of consumer can be categorised into commercial and non-commercial factors. Commercial factors are those which are formed by marketers, these factors may be the product itself, product’s price, and various promotional activities of the firm etc. All the factors other than commercial factors can be called non-commercial factors. Non-commercial factors are the influence of relatives, neighbours, friends etc. The combined influence of both commercial and non-commercial factors helps the consumer to purchases a product. ARISTOTLE ONASS

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

The study is based on the following objective

· To study the pre-purchase decision making behaviour of households for purchasing the selected consumer durable goods.

Data source and methodology:

To fulfil the objective of this study, a field study has been conducted with the help of survey schedule taking a sample of 100 households. Again, the 100 households have been divided into two quotas where 50% of the total sample is taken from Kamrup Metropolitan and 50% from Kamrup district using quota sampling. The survey period for the present study is from June 2017 to July 2017. The study has been conducted for two districts of Assam, Kamrup Metropolitan and Kamrup district and the households are selected randomly from the selected areas. The main analytical tools are Simple percentages, Garrett ranking technique and factor analysis method.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Pre-purchase decision making:

The first step of purchasing decision making process is the need recognition (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2008). The recognition of need for a product may be the outcome of different factors. For the present study, need recognition is captured by the factors such as necessity, comfort and luxury (Sivamani, 2011).

Simple percentage is used to find the reason of purchasing Mobile Phone, Electric Fan, Television and Refrigerator. To study the recognition of need for purchasing the selected goods, three factors have been taken under consideration and they are necessary for life, comfort of life and luxury of life.

Factors influencing in the recognition of need for purchasing the selected consumer durable goods by the sampled households:

Factors	Mobile phone	Electric fan	Television	Refrigerator
Necessary for life	92%	94%	90%	60%
To have comfort of life	0%	6%	1%	15%
To have luxury of life	8%	0%	7%	6%
Total number of households possessing	100%	100%	98%	81%
Total number of households not possessing	0%	0%	2%	19%

Source: Primary data

For Mobile Phone, 92% of the total households purchases because they consider Mobile Phone as the necessary for life and only 8% households purchase it to have the luxury of life. For Electric Fan, 94% households purchase it because they consider it as the necessary item for life and 6% households purchase it to make life comfortable. For Television, 90% households consider it as the necessary product for life, 7% households consider it as the luxury product for life and 1% household considers it to have comfort of life. For Refrigerator, 60% households purchase it because they consider Refrigerator as the necessary product for life, 15% households purchase it to have comfort and 6% households consider it as the luxury item for life. So, it can be concluded that most of the households possessing the selected goods consider these goods as the necessary goods for life.

Relative influence of different factors on the purchase decision:

The factors influencing on consumer behaviour are pointed out by many authors. Onassis (2005) pointed out that the consumer behaviour is influenced by cultural, social, personal and psychological characteristics of consumer. According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2008) the stages of consumer decision making such as input stage and process stage are influenced by two main factors like marketing efforts of firm and external sociological factors. They thus include factors like are price, promotion, family, friends, neighbours, social class, cultural factors etc.

For the present study the factors taken under consideration are income, family influence, influence of neighbour, influence of relative, influence of friend, need for a product as the non-commercial factors. Again, advertisements and other promotions in different sources, variation in prices, warranty and guarantee, discounts and offers given to a product, technological up-gradation and introduction of new brand are taken as the commercial factors.

For finding the relative influences of different factors on the purchasing decision of the households for the selected consumer durable goods, Garrett ranking method has been applied. The respondents have been asked to assign rank against all the 12 factors as mentioned in the survey schedule.

Using Garrett ranking technique, these ranks are converted into scores by using different steps. The Garrett ranking technique uses the following formula:

Percentile position= 100(Rij – 0.5)/Nj, where, Rij = Rank assigned by jth respondents to ith factors and Nj = Number of factors used in the study which are assigned a rank by the respondents (Christy, 2014). Using the Garrett ranking technique, the mean value is obtained for each factors and the factor getting highest mean value is considered as the most influencing factor and so on.

Table 1.1 Ranking of factors as per their influence on purchase decision of Mobile Phone using Garrett scoring

Factors	Total scores	Average scores	Ranks
Income	6655	66.55	2
Family decision	5944	59.44	3
Neighbour’s influence	2879	28.79	12
Relative’s influence	4101	41.01	9
Friend’s influence	5272	52.72	5
Advertisement in various sources	4720	47.20	8
Price variation	4881	48.81	7
Warranty and guarantee period changes	3639	36.39	11
Discounts and offers	5270	52.70	6
Technology up-gradation	5691	56.91	4
New brand introduction in the market	4058	40.58	10
As per the need	6933	69.33	1

Source: Primary data:

From the Table 1.1 it is observed that the need for Mobile Phone is the most influencing factor to purchases. Again the households consider income as the second influencing factor followed by family decision, technology up-gradation, influence from friends, discounts and offers, price variation, advertisement in various sources, influence from relatives, introduction of new brand in the market, changes in warranty or guarantee period and the least influencing factor in the purchase decision of Mobile Phone for the sampled households is the influence from neighbours.

Table 1.2 Ranking of factors as per their influence on the purchase decision of Electric Fan using Garrett ranking

Factor	Total score	Average score	Rank
Income	6241	62.41	3
Family decision	6397	63.97	2
Neighbour’s influence	3894	38.94	10
Relative’s influence	2753	27.53	12
Friend’ influence	3286	32.86	11
Advertisement in various sources	4512	45.12	8
Price variation	4847	48.47	5
Warranty and guarantee period change	4107	41.07	9
Discounts and offers	4773	47.73	6
Technology up-gradation	5984	59.84	4
New brand introduction	4557	45.57	7
As per the need	7749	77.49	1

Source: Primary data

From the Table 1.2 it is observed that need for Electric Fan gets the 1^st rank that is the most influencing factor in the purchase decision of Electric Fan. The second most influencing factor is family decision followed by income, technology up-gradation, price variation, discounts and offers, introduction of new brand, advertisement in various sources, changes in warranty and guarantee period, influence from neighbours, influence from friends and the least influencing factor is the influence from relatives in the purchase decision of Electric Fan.

Table 1.3 Ranking of factors as per the influences on purchase decision of Television

Factor	Total score	Average score	Rank
Income	7355	73.55	1
Family decision	6814	68.14	3
Neighbour’s influence	4466	44.66	8
Relative’s influence	3724	37.24	10
Friend’ influence	3082	30.82	12
Advertisement in various sources	4825	48.25	7
Price variation	5158	51.58	5
Warranty and guarantee period change	4044	40.44	9
Discounts and offers	5599	55.99	4
Technology up-gradation	5149	51.49	6
New brand introduction	3626	36.26	11
As per the need	6993	69.93	2

Source: Primary data:

From the Table 1.3 it is observed that in the purchase decision of Television, the income is the most influencing factor followed by need, family decision, discounts and offers, price variation, technology up-gradation, advertisement in various sources, influence from neighbours, changes in warranty and guarantee period, influence from relatives, introduction of new brand and the least influencing factor is the influence from friends.

Table 1.4 Ranking of factors according to their relative influences on purchase decision of Refrigerator

Factor	Total score	Average score	Rank
Income	7374	73.74	1
Family decision	6531	65.31	3
Neighbour’s influence	3791	37.91	8
Relative’s influence	3754	37.54	9
Friend’ influence	2343	23.43	12
Advertisement in various sources	3137	31.37	10
Price variation	5213	52.13	5
Warranty and guarantee period change	4066	40.66	7
Discounts and offers	5495	54.95	4
Technology up-gradation	5145	51.45	6
New brand introduction	3094	30.94	11
As per the need	7050	70.50	2

Source: Primary data:

From the Table 1.4 it is observed that for Refrigerator, the purchasing decision is influenced mostly by income and assigned 1^st rank followed by need, family decision, discounts and offers, price variation, technology up-gradation, changes in warranty and guarantee period, influence from neighbours, influence from relatives, advertisement in various sources, introduction of new brand and the least important factor is the influence from friends.

So, it can be concluded that the purchase decision of Television and Refrigerator are influenced mostly by income level of a household. For Mobile Phone and Electric Fan, the most influencing factor in the purchase decision is the need for the product. The above mentioned factors include both commercial and non-commercial factors. However, from the responses the respondents for each product, it is not easy to find whether commercial or non- commercial factors are more influential in the purchase decision. But there is a combined influence of commercial and non- commercial factors in the purchase decision of the households.

Process of selection or evaluation of brands:

Generally, the consumer compares the alternatives of a product, alternative brands of a product, available stores etc. to select the best one among many and finally, consumer completes the act of purchasing a product. In the process of evaluation of stores and brands of a product, there will have an image for every store and brand in the mind of a consumer and ultimately the needed product will be purchased from the store and brand which he or she finds the most preferable one (Assael, 2005).

In this study, Likert scale data is used for analysing the brand selection pattern of consumers for the selected consumer durable goods. Here each variable/item contains five options namely, strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. Respondents answer the questions by choosing any of the given options. For the analysis of the data, value 5 is assigned for strongly agreed response, value 4 for agreed response, value 3 for neutral response, value 2 for disagreed response and value 1 for strongly disagreed response (Field, 2005). Using SPSS 16, Factor analysis technique has been applied to find the influences of different variables on the brand selection behaviour of the sampled households.

The variables or items taken under consideration for finding influences on the households in the process of brand selection for the selected products are brand name, origin of a brand, features of a brand’s product, price of a brand’s product, advertisement and other promotions of a brand in various sources, easy availability of repair facilities, warranty and guarantee given to a brand’s product, post purchase servicing associated with a brand’s product, popularity of a brand, design of a brand’s product. The responses for the variables or items are captured under some pre-defined responses in 5 point Likert scale say, strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. Factor analysis method is used for identifying the various factors influencing the respondents in the selection of a brand over other brands available in the market for consumer durable goods. By identifying these factors, marketers can give special priority for these factors.

Factors influencing in the process of brand selection for mobile phone handset over other brands available in the market:

H0: The correlation matrix of the variables is an identity matrix.

H1: The correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix.

Table: KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.859
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	423.494
	Df	45
	Sig.	.000

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is 0.859 which is more than 0.7 so; sample is adequate for factor analysis (principal component). The Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant at p=0.000 indicating sufficient correlations among the variables i.e. null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted which implies that the correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix. The result of Bartlett’s test of sphericity also allows using factor analysis (principal component method). The Determinant of correlation matrix is 0.011which is more than 0.0001 this implies that there is no multicollinearity problem.

Table: Total variance explained

Components	Eigen values	Percentage of variance explained	Percentage of cumulative variance
1	4.647	46.473%	46.473%
2	1.226	12.263%	58.736%
3	1.125	11.255%	69.991%

The total variance explained table shows that three factors having Eigen values >1, cumulatively explain 69.991% of variance.

Table: Rotated Component Matrix

Variables	Factors
	1	2	3
Design of a brand’s product	.888
Popularity of a brand	.766
Advertisement and other promotion of a brand	.748
Origin of a brand	.732
Features of a brand’s product	.604
Brand name	.559
Easy availability of repair facilities		.822
Warrantee or guarantee		.760
Post purchase servicing		.739
Price of a brand’s product			.944

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

The factor rotation technique used is Varimax. From the Roated Component Matrix, it is noticed that design of a brand’s product, popularity of a brand, advertisement and other promotion of a brand, origin of a brand, features of a brand’s product and brand name have high loading with factor 1. Easy availability of repair facilities, warrantee and guarantee and post purchase servicing nave high loading with factor 2. Price of a brand’s product has high loading with factor 3.

Factors influencing in the process of brand selection for electric fan over other brands available in the market:

H0: The correlation matrix of the variables is an identity matrix.

H1: The correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix.

Table: KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.730
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	262.908
	Df	45
	Sig.	.000

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is 0.730 which is more than 0.7 so, sample is adequate for factor analysis( principal component). The Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant at p=0.000 indicating sufficient correlations among the variables i.e. null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted which implies that the correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix. The result of Bartlett’s test of sphericity also allows to use factor analysis (principal component method). The Determinant of correlation matrix is 0.063 which is more than 0.0001 this implies that there is no multicollinearity problem.

Table: Total variance explained

Components	Eigen value	Percentage of variance explained	Percentage of cumulative variance
1	3.255	23.979%	23.979%
2	1.641	16.116%	40.095%
3	1.078	16.115%	56.210%
4	1.010	13.633%	69.843%

The total variance explained table shows that three factors having Eigen values >1, cumulatively explain 69.843% of variance.

Table: Rotated component matrix

Variables	Component
	1	2	3	4
Origin of a brand	.755
Advertisement and other promotion of a brand	.724
Post purchase servicing	.719
Brand name	.578
Features of a brand’s product		.894
Popularity of a brand		.547
Easy availability of repair facilities			.835
Warrantee or guarantee			.765
Price of a brand’s product				.857
Design of a brand’s product				-.520

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

From the Roated component matrix, it is depicted that origin of a brand, advertisement and other promotion of a brand, post purchase servicing, brand name have high loading with factor 1. Features of a brand’s product and popularity of a brand have high loading with factor 2. Variables which have high loading with factor 3 are easy availability of repair facilities and warrantee or guarantee periods. Price of a brand’s product and design of a brand’s product have high loading with factor 4. But design of a brand’s product is inversely related with factor 4.

Factors influencing in the process of brand selection for television over other brands available in the market:

H0: The correlation matrix of the variables is an identity matrix.

H1: The correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix.

Table: KMO and Bartlett's Test


Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.730
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	261.841
	Df	45
	Sig.	.000

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is 0.730 which is more than 0.7. So, sample is adequate for factor analysis (principal component). The Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant at p=0.000 indicating sufficient correlations among the variables i.e. null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted which implies that the correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix. The result of Bartlett’s test of sphericity also allows to use factor analysis (principal component method). The Determinant of correlation matrix is 0.070 which is more than 0.0001 this implies that there is no multicollinearity problem.

Table: Total variance explained

Component	Eigen value	Percentage of variance explained	Percentage of cumulative variance
1	3.428	29.632%	29.632%
2	1.537	15.296%	44.927%
3	1.049	15.215%	60.143%

The total variance explained table shows that three factors having Eigen values >1, cumulatively explain 60.143% of variance.

Variables	Factors
	1	2	3
Origin of a brand	.728
Popularity of a brand	.709
Brand name	.707
Warrantee or guarantee	.670
Features of a brand’s product	.584
Easy availability of repair facilities		.744
Design of a brand’s product		-.737
Post purchase servicing		.506
Price of a brand’s product			-.879
Advertisement and other promotion of a brand			.534

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

The variables which have high loading with factor 1 are origin of brand, popularity of a brand, brand name, warrantee or guarantee periods and features. The variables easy availability of repair facilities, origin of a brand and post purchase servicing have high loading with factor 2. Again, the variables which have high loading with factor 3 are price of a brand’s product and advertisement and other promotions of a brand.

Factors influencing in the process of brand selection for refrigerator over other brands available in the market:

H0: The correlation matrix of the variables is an identity matrix.

H1: The correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix.

Table: KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.722
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	252.352
	Df	45
	Sig.	.000

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is 0.722, which is more than 0.7 so, sample is adequate for factor analysis( principal component). The Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant at p=0.000 indicating sufficient correlations among the variables i.e. null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted which implies that the correlation matrix of the variables is not an identity matrix. The result of Bartlett’s test of sphericity also allows to use factor analysis (principal component method). The Determinant of correlation matrix is 0.060 which is more than 0.0001 this implies that there is no multicollinearity problem

Table:Total variance explained

Component	Eigen value	Percentage of variance explained	Percentage of cumulative variance
1	3.375	27.854%	27.854%
2	1.540	17.027%	44.881%
3	1.104	15.308%	60.190%

The total variance explained table shows that three factors having Eigen values >1, cumulatively explain 60.190% of variance.

Table: Rotated Component Matrix

Variables	Factors
	1	2	3
Origin of a brand	.777
Design of a brand’s product	.746
Popularity of a brand	.665
Advertisement and other promotion of a brand	.617
Features of a brand’s product	.579
Easy availability of repair facilities		.748
Post purchase servicing		.724
Warrantee or guarantee		.576
Price of a brand’s product			-.883
Brand name			.610

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

The variables which have high loading with factor 1 are origin of brand, design, popularity of a brand, advertisement and other promotion and features. The variables easy availability of repair facilities, post purchase servicing and warranty and guarantee have high loading with factor 2. Again, the variables which have high loading with factor 3 are price of a brand’s product and brand name but price is inversely associated with factor 3.

CONCLUSION:

This study discusses the pre-purchase decision making behaviour of households including the two selected districts Assam for purchasing Mobile Phone, Electric Fan, Television and Refrigerator. From the study it can be concluded that Mobile Phone, Electric Fan, Television and Refrigerator are not considered as the luxury item for life but they are considered as the necessary goods by the majority of the sampled households. Income is the most influencing factor for the sampled households for the purchase decision of Television and Refrigerator but for Mobile Phone and Electric Fan the most influencing factor is the need that is the sampled households give the highest importance to the need for a Mobile Phone and an Electric Fan to take purchase decision. The evaluation of brand is also a part of the pre- purchase behaviour. From the observation of the brand evaluation behaviour of the sampled households, it can be concluded that the values of factor loading for all the selected goods are greater than 0.5 which imply that brand name, design, popularity, features, price, warranty and guarantee, repair facility, post purchase servicing, advertisement and other promotions associated with a brand have influence on the brand selection process.

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Received on 01.07.2019 Modified on 31.07.2019

Asian Journal of Management. 2019; 10(3): 241-247.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2019.00038.6