-Sahadev Shrestha

6th semester "B"

Factors Influencing Smartphones Buying Behaviors

Background of the Study

Consumer behavior is the study of people's reactions to goods and services, as

well as the marketing of such products and services. The act of using or
consuming goods or services is referred to as consumer conduct. The study of
consumer behavior focuses on how people determine how to spend their limited
resources (time, money, effort) on consumption-related products or aspects (what
they buy?). When are they going to buy? Where do they shop? How do they
purchase?) [ CITATION Tri12 \l 1033 ] . Understanding consumer behavior and
understanding consumers are never easy. Consumer behavior studies how people,
groups, and organizations choose, purchase, use, and dispose of products,
services, ideas, or experiences to fulfill their needs and desires. The action of an
individual during a transaction is referred to as "Buyer Behavior" (Mohankumar
et al. 2016).
In the present changing technological world using smartphones have become very
popular among consumers specially students and young professionals because of
its distinctive features. “A Smartphone that performs many of the functions of a
computer, usually providing a touch screen interface, Internet access, and an
operating system capable of running downloaded apps,” according to the Oxford
dictionary. The majority of people use apps for web surfing, messaging,
navigation, social media, music listening, news reading, sports, banking, health
and fitness, and taking notes. Calendar, weather forecast and lots of other things
(Kumar et al. 2016). These features and applications in Smartphones somehow
have made people’s life easier either in daily life, at work or for entertainment
purposes. There are a variety of smartphones with different names and brands
available in the market such as Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, etc. All these
 things created an arousal in the author’s mind to study about the consumer
behavior regarding Smartphones. Smartphones present some common features
with conventional mobile phone’s characteristics such as phone style, physical
design, color, size which can contribute positively in Buying Behaviors [ CITATION
Shr201 \l 1033 ].

This study has been done with the goal of identifying the factors that influence
customers' decision to buy a Smartphone. It focuses on the most likely factors that
consumers consider when making a Smartphone buying decision.

Objective of the Study

The major objectives of this study are:
 To identify and analyze the factors which influence the satisfaction level of
the customer on buying smartphones.
 To analyze and understand consumer attitudes toward different smartphones,
as well as the factors that inspire them to buy.

Statement of the Problem

In this research we will identify those determinants that affect the buying behavior
of mobile phones. Buying behavior of every individual are different from each
other. The factor influences for single individuals don't motivate everyone. This
research isn't applicable for everyone. Research is restricted up to sample
individuals.
Most of the researchers had mentioned the major factors, but there weren’t any
opinions from respondents. Even there are other factors that influences
smartphone Buying Behaviors. It would be interesting to examine how decision
making and influencing factors are different among Respondents. The aim of this
paper is to answer the following research question:

 What are the major factors that influence buying behaviors of smartphones?
 Is there any significant relationship influence of product features, brand name,
convenience, dependability, price, and reliability on the Buying Behaviors of
smartphones?

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual framework is the diagram that identifies and illustrates relationships

among the factors that may influence the study and achievement of the
objectives.

Brand

Price

Convenience
Buying Behaviors
Dependency

Product Attractiveness

Relative Advantage

Figure 1 : Conceptual Framework

The above figure shows the conceptual framework designed for the purpose of the
research. This figure shows the independent variable i.e., Brand, Price,
Convenience, Dependency, Product Attractiveness, Relative Advantage and the
dependent variable i.e., Buying behavior.

Definition of terminologies

Brand: Brand is the most valuable asset for a company, where it represents a
product or service means to consumers. Brands are more than just names and
symbols. Brand names are important assets that aid in the identification of quality
and suggest detailed information systems related to the brand (Kumar et al., 2016)
(Joshi et al., 2017).

Convenience: Convenience in Smartphone may refer to the ability to use the

Smartphone at any time and anywhere, without having to port the Smartphone in
a fixed workstation. It able to do everything like a laptop, keeping everything
such as documents, photos, games and apps in one’s pocket. Wi-Fi is everywhere
especially in the city and restaurants, making surfing internet become
convenience (Lay-Yee et al., 2013).

Dependency: It denotes a desire to use it regularly and deeply, as well as a

tendency to refrain from doing so. Smartphones can be used for more than just
calling and texting and internet access; they can also be used for online shopping,
automatic money transfers, lending, emailing, documenting, playing sports,
uploading images, and social networking (Joshi et al., 2017).

Price: Price is the amount of money charged for a product or service. It is the
total amount of monetary terms that customers are willing to give in exchange for
a particular product or service. According to Law of Demand as the price of a
commodity increases the demand for the same decreases (Kumar et al., 2016).

Product Attractiveness: The more attractive the phone's design and model are,
the greater the emotional bond that customers will form with it, which will have a
direct impact on their buying decision (University of Seville, 2018).

Relative Advantage: Relative advantage is the degree to which an innovation is

perceived as better than the product it supersedes, or competing products. People
who want to implement new technologies often want to know if the new concept
is better than the old one, which leads to purchasing behavior (Elogie,2015).
 Buying Behavior: Consumer makes their purchase decision by analyzing the
newly introduce smartphone in the market. They rarely buy old models in the
market. They always prefer new model because of product Attractiveness and
Relative advantage. The Consumer who is loyal to the brand always goes back to
the brand as it satisfies his/her demand (Ganlari et al., 2016).

Significance of the Study

The study will be conducted among Bachelor's students to determine the most
important factors that affect their smartphone purchase decisions. It assists in
understanding the buyer's decision-making process, both internally and together.
It also seeks to determine the impact of various independent variables on the
market, such as brand, convenience, dependability, price, product feature, and
reliability. The significance of the study are as follows:
 This study is able to provide a concept of better understanding on factors that
influence the buying behaviors of smartphones.
 It will be helpful for future researchers who are willing to conduct research on the
related topics.
 This study results in the major dominating factor that influences the buying
behaviors of smartphones.

Limitation of the Study

The different Limitations in the research methodology are mentioned below:

 The result may not give an exact representation of the population since the
convince sampling method has been used.
 The sample taken may not represent the population in a better way.
 The view of the respondents is biased therefore, it may not reflect true picture of
data.
 The data were collected through self administered questionnaire only.
 Research Methodology

 Research Design

Descriptive research design was used in this research to study the Factors influencing
Smartphones Buying Behaviors upon the BBA and BBS Students. Convenience sampling
method has been used to collect the data up to 120 samples. Questionnaire was used to
collect the primary data and statistical tools has been used to collect, analyze, classify and
interpret various data that help to find major findings and results of this research.

 Population and Sample

The population for this study consisted of the Students of D.A.V College and Patan
Multiple Campus who are currently studying B.B.A and B.B.S. The total population of
the survey was 400. The sample size for the study was 197 determined by a sample size
calculator with 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error. However, only 120 data
are analysed for this study by using convenience sampling.

 Data collection procedure

In this study, a quantitative research method was chosen to be used because the study
focuses on factors influencing smartphones buying behaviors. The primary data
collection has been conducted in order to gather data related to the study. The
respondentswere sent the questionnaire between March and early April. The Google
Form is a convenient instrument for data collection. Therefore, structured questionnaires
with closed-end questions are used for data collection for quantitative research methods.
Questionnaire was divided into three section. First part was based on demographic
information, the second part was based on the dependent and independent variables and
the next sections was Likert scale. For all the variables, each consist of 4 - 5 Statements
on Likert scale which was designed to measure the variables which show major influence
factor on buying behaviors. The variables were measured using a five-point Likert Scale
with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 representing stronglyagree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly
disagree, respectively.

 Data Analysis Procedure

In this study, the collected data has been analyzed using the data analysis tools like bar-
diagram, pie-chart, etc. Moreover, the analyzed data has been interpreted using various
statistical tools such as mean, median, mode and correlation. MS- Excel 2015 and SPSS
23 version has been used for systematic analysis of the collected data.
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