A

SYNOPSIS

ON

Différence in Consumer Decision Making Process

in FMCG Sector
(Dental Care, Personal Care, Hair Care, Clothes Care,
Face Care)

Submitted to:

MAHARISHI MARKANDESHWAR DEMEED TO BE

UNIVERSITY MULLANA, AMBALA.

In Partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINSTRATIONS

Session – (2022-2024)

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Dr. Naaz Jaswinder Kaur
Associate Professor MBA Final Year
Roll No.-12227069
 INTRODUCTION

Consumer India has always been preety tricky to double guess. Just when we believe that
consumer spending was firmly on a high growth trajectory based on the wonder years of
2023- 24. It spluttered and slowed to a crawl. For the next few years, marketers tried
everything they knew to stead it up again They dropped prices while improving product
and service quality, they ran by one get one free schemes. But at only help they get
volume growth at a expense of operating margins. The F.M.C.G. Sector adds a terrible
time with some product categories actually shrinking in size while consumer durable
makers struggled to reconcile capacity with demand.
Meanwhile, a lot of littler changes were taking place in the market. Each change,
when viewed isolation, could easily be rejected as not being particularly significant. But
overtime, and the taken together, they have provided a critical mass of change. And
created a deep and distinctive consumer market.
It is a market whose potential and desire to consume as perhaps moved ahead of
the Marketers mental model of it. It continues to be a multi tired market with a Bicycle
class co existing with the Business class. It continues to require a portfolio of
price/performance points. But it is a market that is now unified by certain common
demographic characteristics and consumption desires. And which has enough mass to act
as the springboard for the next stage of the consumption cycle. The question is: Are there
enough relevant products and services available to take advantage of this? In short, it
does appear at the great Indian consuming class has arrived, and is waiting to be served.
Important Changes that have taken place:

 Income Growth.
 Affordability Growth.
 Rural India looks beyond agriculture.
 The rise of Self Employed.
 Education and Health driven.

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 The F.M.C.G. Sector
For the second consecutive year, the FMCG sector grew impressively in 2023. According
to AC Nielsen, the industry, excluding soft drinks and tobacco and accounting for only
branded and packaged consumer goods that go through retail, the industry grew by 5.3
percent in 2022 compared to 5 per cent in 2023. This is three times the 1 to 2 per cent
annual growth rate the sector registered between 2021 and 2022. Considered the size of
the FMCG industry, experts feel that the growth rate is good. The travails the FMCG
industry witnessed not long ago are rather well known. Prior to the present upturn, the
industry went through turmoil when value, volumes and margins either stagnated or
shrunk. This was unusual for it had a long history of sustained and uninterrupted growth.
While some of the industry’s predicament could be attributed to factors affecting
the consumers such as growth in income and other issues like monsoon failure (impacting
rural market), the companies, especially the large ones, also failed to come up with a new
approach to address the situation. Now, on the back of economic growth, burgeoning
consumer income- with the share of F.M.C.G. s in the consumer’s wallet more or less
holding on – and good monsoons, the F.M.C.G. companies are back riding the ascendant
growth curve. Thanks to their better financial position, they are expanding in size and
scale.
HOUSE HOLD SPENDING PATTERNS BY ZONES
North Zone
Estimated Households (000”s) 14480
Average monthly expenditure per 7745
household (Rs)
Groceries 31
Utilities 9
Children 7
Travel/commuting 7
Clothing & Footwear 5
Other expenses 3
Communication 5
All figure in per cent unless mentioned

2
 Fast Moving Consumer Goods

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), also known as Consumer Packaged Goods
(CPG), are products that have a quick turnover, and relatively low cost. Consumers
generally put less thought into the purchase of FMCG than they do for other products.
Though the absolute profit made on FMCG products is relatively small, they generally
sell in large numbers and so the cumulative profit on such products can be large.

Examples of FMCG generally includes a wide range of frequently purchased

consumer products such as toiletries, soap, cosmetics, teeth cleaning products, shaving
products and detergents, as well as other non-durables such as glassware, bulbs,
condoms, rizlas, batteries, paper products and plastic goods. FMCG may also include
pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, packaged food products and drinks, although
these are often categorized separately.

FMCG products can be thought of in contrast with consumer durables, which are
generally replaced less than once a year (e.g. kitchen appliances). Three of the largest and
best known examples of Fast Moving Consumer Goods companies are Nestlé, Unilever
and Procter & Gamble. Examples of FMCGs are soft drinks, tissue paper, and chocolate
bars. Examples of FMCG brands are Coca-Cola, Kleenex, Pepsi and the Mars Bar.

A subset of FMCGs are Fast Moving Consumer Electronics which contain

innovative electronic products such as mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, GPS
Systems, cell phones and Laptops which are replaced more frequently than other
electronic products.

3
 Consumer Behavior

The actions a person takes in purchasing and using products and services,
including the mental and social processes that precede and follow these
actions.
The behavioral sciences help answer questions such as:
Why people choose one product or brand over another,
how they make these choices, and
how companies use this knowledge to provide value to consumers

1. CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION PROCESS

a. Behind the visible act of making a purchase lies a decision process that
must be investigated.
b. The purchase decision process is the stages a buyer passes through in
making choices about which products and services to buy. :

Five Stages of Consumer Behavior

1. Problem recognition,
2. Information search,
3. Alternative evaluation,
4. Purchase decision, and
5. Post-purchase behavior

4
 CONCEPTUALIZATION

CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS

Need Recognition

Information Search

Evaluation of Alternatives

Purchase Decision

Post Purchase Behavior

5
 LITERATURE REVIEW

1) According to Peter Paul & Tarpey (1975) consumer behavior is replete with
theoretical construction and models of varying degrees of complexity. A careful review
of this literature leads one to the inexorable conclusion that the search for a “grand
theory” of consumer behavior would be quixotic. A more reasonable task for the Scholar
researcher is to test rigorously some of the existing theoretical formulations to discover
which ones are more perspicacious explanations of how specific purchase decisions are
made.

2. According to Bhatti & Srivastava (2003) Workingwomen’s were found to be

involved more in the case of food items (79.0-93.0%) as compared to non-food items
(6.0-46.0%) with an exception of their major participation (78.0%) at the stage of
identifying the problem in case of non-food items. The study revealed that the time
consumed at various step of consumer decision-making process is minimum for most of
the steps in case of food item but moderate to maximum in case of non-food items. But
for analyzing the alternatives the time consumed was moderate to maximum for both the
categories. Finding also revealed that difficulty level was from moderate to high (32.0-
98.0%) in most of the steps in case of food items whereas, in case of non-food items it
was from low to high (11.0-78.0%)

3) According to Olshavsky & Granbois (2008) a synthesis of research on consumer

prepurchase behavior suggests that a substantial proportion of purchases do not involve
decision making, not even on the first purchase. The heavy emphasis in current research
on decision-making may discourage investigation of other important kind of consumer
behavior.

4) According to Davis (2011) Research on household decision-making is reviewed

in terms of three questions:

(i) Which family members are involved in economic decisions?

(ii) What is the nature of family decision processes?

6
(iii) Are decision outcomes affected by differences in family role structure and decision
strategies? Problem areas related to each of these questions are discussed, including an
overemphasis on decision roles rather than processes and outcomes, noncom parable and
insufficient measures of purchase influence, and marketing preferences for individual
based models of consumer beha.

5) According to Renee & Weber (2015) Examine the effect of characteristics of the
decision situation and of the decision maker on decision process and outcomes in the
context of risky choice. Male and female undergraduate’s students were presented with
decisions from different domain of life. For each decision they indicated the likelihood
with which they would use each of five decision modes by following someone advice, by
weighing pros and corns, by following their intuition, etc. They found that the content
domain of the decision and the gender of the decision maker influenced decision mode
usage, and risk perception, behavior and preference.

6) According to Loudon & Della Bitta (2020) Consumer Behavior is seen to

involve a mental decision processes as well as physical activity. The actual set of
purchase is just one stage in a series of mental and physical activities that occur during a
period of time.

7) According to Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (2021) the Decision making process
includes the steps as problem recognition, informational search and evaluation,
purchasing process and post purchase behavior.

8) According to Kassarjian Harold (2022) it has been suggested that for certain
purchase situation some consumer do not engage in a prepurchase decision process. E.g.
they may not have stored information, it may not be retrieved or retrievable, and they
may not search externally.

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 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1) To Study the Effect of Preference-Insight, Ability to Express Preference and

Product Involvement Derived to F.M.C.G. products in terms of:

 Product Category usage

 Sources of Information Search
 No. of Brands search
 Factors considered while purchasing.

2) To find out the brand Purchased & post Purchase Behavior of Consumers.
3) To find out the association of value added services on customer preference

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 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND ANALYTICAL TOOLS

Research refers to the systematic method consisting of enunciating the problem,

formulating a hypothesis, collecting the facts or data, analysis the facts and reaching
certain conclusions either in the form of solution towards the concerned problem or in
certain generalizations for some theoretical formulation.
Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It
may be understood is a science of studying how research is done scientifically. In it we
study the various steps that all generally adopted by a researcher in studying his research
problem along with the logic behind them.
The scope of research methodology is wider than that of research methods.
Research methodology not only includes the research method but also the logic behind
using a particular method or technique and why we are not using others so that the
research results are capable of being evaluated either by the researcher himself or by
others.

Research methodology gives the answers of the following questions:

 Why a research study has been undertaken?
 How the research problem has been defined?
 In what way and why the hypothesis has been formulated?
 What data have been collected and what particular method has been adopted?
 Why particular technique of analyzing data has been used? , etc.

9
 RESEARCH DESIGN

A research is the arrangement of the conditions for the collections and analysis of the
data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in
procedure. In fact, the research is design is the conceptual structure within which research
is conducted; it constitutes the blue print of the collection, measurement and analysis of
the data. As search the design includes an outline of what the researcher will do from
writing the hypothesis and its operational implication to the final analysis of data.
The overall research design decision may be split into following parts:
a) Sampling Design which deals with the method of selecting items to be observed
for the given study;
b) Observation Design which relates to the condition under which the observation
are to be made.
c) Statistical Design which concerns with the question of how many items are to
observed and how the information and data gathered are to be analyzed;
d) Operation Design which deals with the techniques by which the procedures
specified in the sampling , statistical and observational designs can be carried out.

Types of Research Design:

Types
Of
Research Design

Exploratory Descriptive
Research & Hypothesis
Design Diagnostic Testing
Research Design

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I. Exploratory Research Design:
Exploratory research studies are those studies related to formulating a problem for more
precise investigation or of developing the working hypotheses from an operational
point of view. The major emphasis in such studies is on the discovery of ideas and
insights. The research design for such studies must be flexible enough to provide
opportunity for considering different aspects of a problem under study.

II. Descriptive and Diagnostic Research Design:

Descriptive research studies are those studies which are concerned with describing the
characteristics of a particular individual, or of a group. Diagnostic research studies
determine the frequency with which something occur or its association with something
else. The research design must make enough provision for protection against bias and
must maximize reliability.
In this study we use Questionnaire as primary data collection tool and will use
Exploratory Research Design.
Hypothesis – testing :
Hypothesis – testing research studies are those where the researcher test the hypotheses
of causal relationship between the variables. Prof. R. A. Fisher developed the
experimental designs for testing hypotheses concerning scientific investigations.
The research design used in this research is exploratory research as new insight is
developing to know the difference in consumer decision making process with
regards to male and female.

Time Horizon:-
The study has been found to be Cross-sectional as data has been collected at particular
time period.

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 SAMPLING AND SAMPLING DESIGN

Sampling may be defined as the selection of some part of an aggregate or totality on the
basis of which a judgment or inference about the aggregate or totality is made. In simple
words, it is the process of obtaining information about the population by examining only
a part of it.
Sample Design
Sample design refers to the technique or the procedure the researcher would adopt in
selecting items for the sample. Sample design may as well lay down the number of items
to be included in the sample i.e. the size of the sample.

 Universe:
The universe of the study is all the male and female.

 Sampling Unit:
Sampling unit of this study is taken the region of Yamuna Nagar & Jagadhri.

 Sample Size:
The sample size is taken 100 person comprises 50 Male and 50 Female.

Study Setting:-
The study setting is Non Contrived as the study has been carried out in natural
environment and no researcher interference has been there in data collection
process.
Measurement & Scaling:-
Five point Likert (interval) scaling will use for conducting the survey
Strongly agree - 1
Agree - 2
Neutral – 3
Disagree - 4
Strongly Disagree-5

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 Types Of
Sample
Design

Representation Element
Selection
Basis
Basis

Non-
Probability Probability Restricted Unrestricted
Sampling Sampling Sampling
Sampling

The Sample Design used in this study is the Convenience Sampling which is the part
of non –probability sampling.

SAMPLE AND SAMPLING DESIGN4

TARGET POPULATION FMCG users

409
SAMPLE SIZE
Stratified sampling

SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

SAMPLING AREA Yamuna Nagar- Jagadhri

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 DATA COLLECTION

The task of data collection begins after a research problem has been defined and research
design chalked out. The Data collection of the research should be done by taking the
great care as the data collection of the research is the base for finding the exact result &
the authenticity of the hypothesis. After the research problem has been identified and
selected the next step is to gather the requisite data. While deciding about the method of
data collection to be used for the researcher should keep in mind two types of data viz.
primary and secondary

METHODS OF
DATA COLLECTION

Primary Secondary
Data Data

PRIMARY DATA: -
The primary data are those, which are collected afresh and for the first time, and thus
happened to be original in character. We can obtain primary data either through
observation or through direct communication with respondent in one form or another or
through personal interview.

14
 METHODS OF PRIMARY DATA

Observation Interview Questionnaire Schedule

Method Method Method Method

SECONDARY DATA: -
The secondary data on the other hand, are those which have already been collected by
someone else and which have already been passed through the statistical processes. When
the researcher utilizes secondary data then he has to look into various sources from where
he can obtain them. For e.g. Books, magazine, newspaper, Internet, publications and
reports.

The data collected in this research is primary data which is collected through the
schedule from the respondent.

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 HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING4

 Null hypothesis (H0): There is no significant impact of preference insight

parameter on customer preference
 Alternate hypothesis (H1): There is significant impact of preference insight
parameters on customer preference.

One-Sample Test
Test Value = 0
95% Confidence Interval of the
Mean Difference
T Df Sig. (2-tailed) Difference Lower Upper
Customer prefer the variety 38.398 408 .000 1.447 1.37 1.52
of laptops available online.
The company provides high 37.924 408 .000 1.814 1.72 1.91
satisfaction of customized
product

Interpretation:

Through one sample T-test it has been found that preference insight has a significant
impact on customer preference since significant level is .000 which is less than 0.05 so,
null hypothesis is rejected and alternate is accepted and it has been found that there is an
impact of preference insight on customer preference.

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 HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Test -1
 Null hypothesis (H0): There is significant impact of ability to express preference
on customer preference
 Alternate hypothesis (H2): There is significant of ability to express preference
on customer preference

Test -2
 Null hypothesis (H0): There is no significant impact of product involvement on
customer preference
 Alternate hypothesis (H3): There is significant impact of product involvement on
customer preference

STATISTICAL TOOLS
Statistical tools helped the researcher to correctly analyses the data .The researcher is
likely to use the SPSS 16.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and AMOS 16.0
(student edition) software for analysis of the data.
The following tools are likely to be used by the researcher:-
 PCA (Principle component analysis)

 Logistic Regression

 SEM (Structure Equation Model)

17
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Bhatti, S and Srivastava, R (2003), “ Participation of Working

Women in Decision Making Process as Consumer,” International
Journal of Consumer Studies, Volume 27, No.3, pp. 228-228(1)
 Davis Harry(1976), “Decision Making Within the Household” The
Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 2, No.4,pp. 241-260
 Engel, James. and Blackwell, Roger(1982), Consumer Behavior,
(4/e), The Dryden Press, Chicago
 Engel, James; Blackwell, Roger. and Miniard,Paul (1990) Consumer
Behavior, (6/e), The Dryden Press, Chicago
 Hawkins, Del; Best, Roger. And Coney, Kenneth (2002), Consumer
Behavior Building Marketing Strategies, (8/e), Tata McGraw Hill
 Howard, John (1989), Consumer Behavior in Marketing Strategy,
Prentice Hall , pp.361-364
 http;/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fast_moving_consumer_goods
 Kassarjian Harold (1978),” Advances in Conmsumer Research”
Association for Consumer Research,Volume 5, pp xii-xiv
 Kelly Robert (1962), “The Search Component of the CDP- A
Theoretic Examination”, in Robert L King (ed), Marketing and the
new Science of Planning, American Marketing Association, Chicago,
p.273
 Loudon, David & Della, Bitta (2004), Consumer Behavior, (6/e) Tata
McGraw Hill pp.513
 Marketing Whitebook (2006), The f.M.C.G.Sector, Product
Penetration, Spending Patterns,pp.117-122,138

18
 QUESTIONNAIRE-CUSTOMER OPENION
Difference in Consumer Decision Making Process in FMCG Sector
( Dental Care, Personal Care, Hair Care, Clothes Care, Face Care)
with regards to Male & Female

Name: ______________________________________________

Gender : Male Female

Age : ______________________________________(In Years)

Address : ______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Telephone/Mobile : ______________________________________(If Any)

Occupation : Farming Business Professional

Service Any Other__________

Q 1) Which of the following products do you use? (Tick the option)

a) Dental Care Category:

Toothpaste Tooth Powder Mouth Wash

Mouth Fresfner Any Other__________

b) Personal Wash Category:

Bathing Soap Body Wash Multani Mitti

Scrub Any Other__________

c) Hair Care Category:

Shampoo Soap Conditioner

Mehandi Any Other__________

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 d) Clothes Care Category:

Detergent Powder Detergent Bar Liquid Detergent

Stain Remover Any Other__________

e) Face Care Category:

Cream Lotion Gel

Face wash Any Other__________

Q 2) From which of the following sources you search information about

following products?

Dental Personal Hair Care Clothes Face

care Wash Category Care Care
Category Category Category Category
Friends
Advertisement
In Store
Experts
Others

Q 3) Before buying how many Products/Brands do you search?

Dental Personal Hair Clothes Face

Care wash Care Care Care
Category category Category Category Category
Less than 2
2-4
More than 4

20
 Q 4) In the past what made you to buy the following products?

Dental Personal Hair Clothes Face

Care Wash Care Care Care
Category Category Category Category Category
Sales Promotion
Advertisement
Recommendation
New Brand
Impulse Buying
Packaging
Others

Q 5) Which of the following factor do you consider most while purchasing

any product category?

Dental Personal Hair Care Clothes Face

care Wash Category Care Care
Category Category Category Category
Quality
Price
Brand
Features
Others

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 Q 6)How much do you spend on the following product category in a month?

Dental Personal Hair Care Clothes Face

care Wash Category Care Care
Category Category Category Category
0 - 100
100 - 200
200 -500
500 - 1000
More than 1000

Q 7) Which of the following brand/ product you purchase in last 3 months?

a) Dental Care Category:

Colgate Close Up Pepsodent

Dabur Lal Any Other__________

b) Personal Wash Category:

Lux Fair Glow Dove

Lifebuoy Any Other__________

c) Hair Care Category:

Sunsilk Clinic Head & Shoulders

Vatika Any Other__________

d) Clothes Care Category:

Surf Excel Rin Tide

Ariel Any Other__________

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 e) Face Care Category:

Fair & Lovely Ponds Lakme

Loreal Any Other__________

Q 8) How much are you satisfied with your purchase decision?

Highly Satisfied Nor satisfied Dissatisfied Highly

satisfied Nor Dissatisfied dissatisfied
Dental care
Category
Personal wash
category
Hair Care
Category
Clothes care
Category
Face Care
Category

Q 9) When you will be dissatisfied with either of these Product Category

what you will do?

Dental Personal Hair Care Clothes Face

Care Wash Category Care Care
Category Category Category Category
Change the Brand

Retain the Brand

Complaint to the
Company
Discontinue the
Product
Others

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 ANNEXURES I

Name:
Age:
 Below 20 years old
 20 - 30 years old
 31 - 41 years old
 Above 41 years old
Occupation:
 Student
 Employee
 Business
 Others

Location :Chandigarh
Income:
 Below RM 2, 000
 RM 2, 000 - RM 5, 000
 Above RM 5, 000

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 CUSTOMER DECISION MAKING LEVEL

Sr. # Questions Strongly Disagree neutra Agree Strongly

Disagree l Agree
1. Customer prefer the variety of
FMCG products available in
store .

2. Customers prefer the after sale

services.
3. Customers prefer the
customized products.
4. Customers prefer the value for
money.
5. The company provides high
quality FMCG products
6. The company provides reliable
information about configuration

7. The company provides facility

of product replacement

8. The company provides high

high quality packaging.

9. The company provides high

satisfaction of customized
product
10. Customers have involvement in
free gifts(bags, headphone)

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11. Customers have the option to
get their FMCG products
designed as per their
requirements.
12. Customers involvement in the
designing of package.

13. Customers prefer mode of

Online payment.

14. Company involve the customer

for change the design.

15. Company provides good

quantity and style of packaging.

16. Customers provides , light

weight and colorful dress/cloths

17. Company attracts customers

through promotional schemes.

18. Customers prefer quality and

durability.

19. Company provides the extra

benefits for facing the
competition.
20. Customer willingness to pay for
the customization products.

21. Company provide delivery of

FMCG Products.

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