Consumer Market Purchase Decision: An Application to Durable Goods in Jaffna District

Abstract

Consumers’ decision-making process was based on their evaluations of the multiple attributes associated with the product. Now all products are in a competitive market, consumers require an understanding of the critical dimensions and cues that consumers use to judge a product. The paper assesses the current state of Consumer Market Purchase Decision on five durable goods and addresses two research objectives: first, develop the most influencing attributes of consumer decision for durable goods and second, conduct a process-tracing and naming key factors affecting consumers’ judgment processes. Convenient sampling technique was used in the sample selection. Responses were collected from 500 customers from Jaffna city. The study was based on primary sources, a questionnaire containing 30 items. This paper presents a Factor Analysis approach to the problem of extracting the influences on Consumer Market Purchase Decision for durable goods. To further analyze the reliability of the data, Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO), Bartlett Test of sphericity and correlation matrix were conducted. Results indicated that valid consumer influences were six factor component s: Quality, personal, price, psychological, brand name and product support services. This research further revealed that customers had more emphasis on the Quality than other factors. However, next in importance was the personal factor. Third important factor was price. Further psychological factor was also the next influencing factor and another important weightage was given to the brand name. Finally product support service aspects also influenced on the consumer decision making. Therefore, it can be concluded that considering above attributes which influence Consumer Market Purchase Decision for the analysis, successive marketing and long term sustainability for products can be planned.