INTRODUCTION

Computers serve as a source of entertainment in addition to its role as resource and productivity tool.
The science and technology are developed in this 21st Era. Today electrical and electronic device are of
great importance, which makes our life easier and more convenient. The market has become saturated
with well-known brands, each offering nearly indistinguishable products to a population of consumers
that are now more educated, informed decision.

We performed a preliminary study to determine whether there is a relationship that exists between the
brand of laptop consumers selected and a variety of demographic and evaluative buying criteria of the
consumers.

The first of several variables analyzed in this study was the brand of laptop selected in the purchase
decision. The secondary variables are both tangible, product-related factors like price and features as
well as intangible, brand-related attributes like brand image and outside recommendation. The
demographic variables include age and profession.

According to Philip Kotler, “Brand equity is defined as the added value endowed on products and
services. It may be reflected in the way consumers think, feel, and act with respect to the brand, as well
as in the prices, market share, and profitability the brand commands for the firm.”

We follow the following hypothesis-

1. The preference of the brand of laptop owned by consumers is independent of gender.

2. The consumer’s preference of buying a laptop is directly related to the brand equity of the
product.

The term consumer behavior is defined as the behavior that a consumer displays in searching,
purchasing, consumption, evaluating and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy
their needs. Consumer behavior focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available
resources (time, money, effort) on consumption related items. This includes what they buy, why they
buy it, when they buy it, where they buy it, how often they buy it, how often they use it, how they
evaluate it after the purchase and the impact of such evaluation on future, and how they dispose of it. In
other words, consumer behavior can be defined as the behavior of individuals in regards to acquiring,
using, and disposing of products, services, ideas or experiences. Consumer behavior also includes the
Acquisition and use of information. Thus, communication with Consumers and receiving feedback for
them is a crucial part of consumer behavior.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Consumers can prefer certain products, brands or companies over others, and to understand
the reason behind these choices is exceptionally essential in order to market existing products more
effectively than rivals. Consumers’ demographic profile, purchase perceptions, and their attitudes
towards products or brands influence their purchase decisions.
Jarvenpaa and Tedd (1996/1997) identify many factors that affect a consumer’s electronic shopping
purchase decision: product understanding, shopping experience, customer service, and consumer risk.
Geisler and Hoang (1992) identify five steps in the decision process to purchase IT: 1. Establish or
articulate the need for IT. 2. Establish or determine which unit(s) will receive the new or modified IT. 3.
Select the technology. 4. Select the suppliers. 5. Authorize the purchase and sign the authorization to
commit the necessary funds. The authors conclude that services companies follow a relatively logical
and analyzable decision process.
According to Decision Making Model, Consumers Process the Environmental Cues (Hong and Lerch,
2002); the physical factors of the product, psychosocial cues, such as advertising, and consumers put
these cues into a set of perceptions that shape their preferences Based on these preferences,
consumers make their choices subject to situational constraints, such as price (Hong and Lerch, 2002).
According to Hong and Lerch (2002), people evaluate various objective features when buying an IT
product, and because of imperfect information and simplifications according to the decision rules
people often abstract these various features into few perceptual dimensions such as ‘usefulness’ and
‘price’.

In another research conducted by Kim et al. (2002), small-office/home-office professional (SOHO)

procurement choices are influenced by a number of salient dimensions (i.e. income, performance, price,
inter-purchase time, network externalities).

Furthermore, surveys have repeatedly identified performance and price as two of the most important
attributes in SOHOs' PC purchase decisions. In a more recent study, Dillon and Reif (2004) examine
factors influencing consumers’ e-commerce commodity purchases, and find that a history of e-
commerce purchasing have a more positive attitude towards on-line buying.

A study on Consumer Preference towards Laptops in Tiruchirapalli District by T.Porkodi

Dr.M.Sivakumar V.Rengarajan & V. Vijayanand Dr.T.V.Ambuli and S.Saravanan constitutes a survey
followed by an analysis of consumer preferences towards the variety of laptops available in the market.
The survey covers 600 individuals spread across 5 taluks of Tiruchirapalli district in Tamil Nadu. It
stresses upon how important a customer is to a business, hence market research and analytics play an
important role in defining the future performance of a business because it helps in developing effective
marketing strategies that help in growth, diversification and decision making.
The research covers an individual's age, occupation, and brand choice based on the usage patterns of
the product. It also covers the chi-square test, ANOVA test, and correlation for the same. It concludes a
few points such as having no correlation between the age of respondent and the brand of laptop he/she
uses. While the occupation of the user plays an active role in the choice of brand for the user.

A study of Different Factors Influencing Consumers' Pre-Purchase Buying Behavior Towards Laptop by
Dr. A C Brahmbhatt and Sejal Acharya aims at identifying the factors affecting buying behavior of
consumers from two cities of Gujarat State: Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, with respect to branded
laptops. The survey comprises of respondents, who were selected from the 2 cities, in the age group of
20 years and more, and were students, salaried and business persons. The sample size was 232. They
were all given a list of various features generally available in laptops and were asked to show how
important those were to them while purchasing a laptop.
The paper shows in-depth correlation tests being conducted and also features a table explaining the
total variance between the feature preferences of the consumers. Through this study, they found that
factors such as technical specifications, the outlook of the product, purchase convenience and
affordability influence the consumers’ laptop purchase decisions. It further recommends companies to
invest in technology through R&D and create differentiation at the utmost level.
OBJECTIVE
 To determine the preference and the choice of laptops on the basis of various variables like
gender, educational background, profession, budget, work experience etc.
 To analyze the customer preference level associated with different laptops.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research in common parlance refers to a search for knowledge. Also, can be defined as a scientific and
systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. Research is a careful investigation or
inquiry especially through search for new facts in any branch of knowledge.

The research design comprises of the plan and structure of investigation conceived so as to arrive at the
responses to the research queries. It there by addresses the aims and objectives of the study, both
descriptively and analytically.

Data Collection
 Primary data collected: Questionnaire
 Secondary data collected: Internet

Sampling Technique
The sampling technique adopted for the study is Judgemental sampling technique according to the
convenience of the researcher. A questionnaire was administered to different students and working
professionals to obtain data for the purpose of analysis.

Sample Size
Data is collected using a sample of 100 Respondents.

Questionnaire
Keeping in mind our objective to determine the consumer buying preference, we structured a set of 15
questions majorly focusing on brand preference, budget, and professional background of the
respondants.

Tools and Techniques for Analysis

We drafted a questionnaire on Google Forms and floated the same amongst our peers in order to know
their preferences during pre-purchase, consumption and disposing of their laptops.
Using this information we intend to conduct a detailed analysis to obtain various useful trends from said
obtained data by using SPSS.
EXPECTED OUTCOME
 To obtain a detailed analysis comprising of customer preferences while buying Laptops.
 The research will be carried out keeping in mind various perspectives such as Brand equity,
features, value for money and other such important aspects.
 Through this study, it will be found that there are basically four factors which influence the
consumers’ laptop purchase decisions. These factors can be stated as follows: technical
specifications, Outlook of the product, purchase convenience and Affordability. This study could
make appropriate recommendations to companies to invest in areas that would help the
company to improve its offering and hence improve its business prospects and profitability.