CONSUMERS’ buying BEHAVIOUR IN PURCHASE OF LAPTOP INTRODUCTION Laptop sales in India have risen drastically, which accounts for over 25% of the total personal computer market. Laptop sales only accounted for a 3% of the total personal computer till 2003. The sales of the laptops has reached a mark of 0.68 million unit in fiscal year 2006-2007 which accounts for a growth of 59% over the same period in fiscal year 2005-2006. Sale of desktop computers and laptops has touched the mark of 8.5 million units in the fiscal year 2007-2008. There are various main players in the Indian notebook market. The objectives of the study are to understand the brand position in the minds of the laptop owners and to map their perception. It also focuses on mapping the dealer perception about the top performing brands in the laptop sales. From the study it was found that customers prefer a particular brand compared to others. This particular brand is preferred mainly by the youths because of the good configuration available and its brand image. The company being studied seems to be lacking in considered attributes. Businessmen however use a combination of all the brands; this could be probably because of the various applications of theirs. The customers find cash discount and free accessories most attractive while making a purchase. A reasonable percentage of people also have a mind to accept new offers also. The success rate in achieving good market share by the highly preferred company by customers proves that the advertising media plays a crucial part in promoting their products. The dealers find the incentives by this particular company most attractive compared to other IT and technology companies. There are seminal studies on consumer purchase decision models in the literature, however, consumer purchase decisions vary greatly depending on the product to be purchased. Therefore, sectoral studies are needed to delineate the factors affecting consumer purchase decisions in various product markets. The International Data Corporation (IDC, 2006) report mentioned that in 2005 consumers continued to respond very positively to very attractive price points, but portable demand in the business space remained very strong too. According to What Laptop (2005), Dell was the number one choice in worldwide with 7.9 million sales. It was followed 1

respectively by HP (7.4 million), Toshiba (5.8 million), IBM (4.3 million), and Acer (3.9 million) in year 2004. Furthermore, revenue generated from notebooks has long surpassed desktops, thanks to higher average selling prices for notebooks. According to CRN (2006) in June 2005, notebook sales accounted for $216.1 million, or $1,442.66 per notebook whereas desktops accounted for $113.9 million, or $762.98 per unit. The average notebook price fell 11.8 percent from $1,635.07 in the year-ago month and in the same period, desktop prices fell 5 percent from $803.38 (CRN, 2006). In addition, new product launches to the market, acquisitions and mergers in the sector, rapid developments in the nano-technology, integrated wireless networking, and decreased prices make it extremely vital for the companies to understand the factors underlying consumers’ laptop purchase decisions. The customer base of a company consists of three groups of consumers: stayers (those who had never switched from a previous brand), satisfied switchers (those who switched for reasons other than dissatisfaction), and dissatisfied switchers (those who switched because they were dissatisfied from their previous brand). Understanding the attitudes of these three different groups of customers plays an important role when implementing effective and feasible retention and loyalty strategies. Furthermore, it is also crucial to understand whether there are differences among these groups in terms of the factors affecting their future laptop purchases when they are upgrading their computers. The objectives of this study are twofold. Initially, it is aimed to determine the factors influencing consumers’ laptop purchases, and the findings of this first objective will provide the basis for the second research objective in the study. Secondly, it is intended to find out whether there are differences among consumer groups of a computer company with respect to the importance given to the factors influencing consumers’ laptop purchases. In the following part a brief and recent literature will be given about consumers’ purchase decisions.

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BACKGROUND The literature on purchase decision in this part has been limited to IT related purchase decisions due to the product category which will be examined in this current study. 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; 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. 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

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factors influencing consumers’ e-commerce commodity purchases, and find that a history of ecommerce purchasing have a more positive attitude towards on-line buying.

What is the Consumer Behavior Report? The Consumer Behavior Report is designed to give merchants, media and industry analysts insight into shopping trends, pricing and market share. Each month, a different topic will be the focus of the report.

What is the Portable Laptop Trends Report? The portable laptop is the topic of PriceGrabber.com March 2008 Consumer Behavior Report. Portable laptops trends and data were collected from a survey of 1,868 online consumers conducted in February 2008. Additional data is sourced from Market Reporter, a statistical database that tracks consumer shopping behavior on PriceGrabber.com. The Notes from the Green section is compiled by Olivia Zaleski, an eco friendly blogger for PriceGrabber.com Shop Green section. The focus of the Shop Green section is to provide more than 20,000 products to help consumers live a greener lifestyle. PriceGrabber.com is a major shopping comparison engine, with more than 26 million unique users per month and up-to-date daily pricing of products supplied more than 12,000 sellers.

Future Laptop Trends What does this mean for the future of laptops? As laptops become smaller, will traditional sized laptops become obsolete? In a recent PriceGrabber.com survey, 44 percent of online consumers say they would travel more often with their laptop if it was a portable-style. Smaller laptops and devices are certainly more attractive to consumers, as long as the price and performance are comparable. Gartner states: By 2012, half of all workers will use devices other than their laptops when they

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travel. Even though notebooks continue to shrink in size and weight, traveling workers lament the weight and inconvenience of carrying them on their trips. Vendors are developing solutions to address these concerns: new classes of Internet-centric pocketable devices at the sub-US$400 level; and server and Web-based applications that can be accessed from anywhere

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Data Collection In line with the research purposes of this study, a questionnaire was prepared and then it was filled by respondents in city of RAIPUR.. Since this research was focused on the factors influencing laptop purchase decisions of consumers, it was seen appropriate to perform a traditional survey. In addition, a cover letter, which had explained the purpose of the study, with the questionnaire was sent to the customers. During the data collection of this research, most of the electronic shops were selling IBM laptops as well as desktops. Hence, even though IBM no longer exists as a PC brand name, Lenova was included to the questionnaire as IBM launched Lenova logo for its expansion. Another PC brand Compaq was eliminated from the questionnaire, since it was long ago merged with HP. Furthermore, in order to omit the confusion of national or international brand distinction from the minds of consumers, only international brands were examined in this study. The laptop brands examined in this research were limited by the following brands: Acer, Dell, HP, HCL, Lenova, and Sony.

Objectives of the Study: 

To study the laptop buying behavior of people at RAIPUR

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To find out the satisfaction level, liking, needs, choice of people in Laptop at Raipur

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To suggest measures to improve the satisfaction level of employees.

Need of the Study: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

Scope of study: This proposed study is being limited to peopleat Raipur. This proposed study will help to find the satisfaction level, liking, needs, choice of people in Laptop at Raipur.

Research Methodology Method is a way of doing something and methodology is a set of methods used in aparticular area of activity. The research methodology employed in the research is as givenby Philip Kotler.  Developing the problems and research objective. 

Developing the information sources.

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Collecting and analyzing the information.

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Presenting the information.

Research problem Ur topic

Research Design Research Design is a series of advanced decisions that taken together comprise a masterplan or model for the conduct of an investigation. So research design provides aframework of plan for study, which guides the collection, measurement, analysis, andinterpretation of the data. The research carried out here is descriptive in nature. Descriptive research provides data about the population or universe being studied. It candescribe 5 W’s, 1H i.e. what, when, why, who, where, and how.

Sample Design and Size The population of studyis people at RAIPUR. And the sample size of 100 Employees Students Working women Customers in laptop shopes. 7

This study is based inconvenience sampling for which areas of are limited to RAIPUR.

Method of Data Collection The fourth step of research methodology is data collection. It can be done through primary or secondary techniques. In this study both the techniques are used to collect the data. 

To collect primary data a survey will be conducted on Employee Satisfaction.

 To collect primary data a survey will be conducted on Employee Satisfaction through a questionnaire, which will be filled by the employees of Corporate Office. Various questions will be asked to gain maximum information from the respondents. 

For secondary data I have referred journals, magazines and Internet.

Scaling Technique Scaling techniques is used in this survey, for understanding the co-relation between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction and the answers of the respondents are elucidated by asking them to indicate their level of agreement on a given five point liker scale with values ranging from “1” (strongly disagree) to “5” (strongly agree).

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CHAPTER-III

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LAPTOP INDUSTRY

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CHAPTER –IV

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CHAPTER-V

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