Survey to Examine Gender and Age Influences on Cognitive and Impulsive Buying

Proposal for Term Project on

Survey to examine gender and age influences on

Cognitive and Impulsive Buying

Submitted on October 13th, 2010.

In
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the
Research Methodology course in the
MBA Programme (FT):2010-2012

Submitted to
Prof. Tripura Joshi

Submitted by:

Deepika Bhatt 101311
Shikha Shah 101349
Satpal Singh 101347

Title Gender and age influences on buying behavior of consumers.

Background
Men and women differ in their affective and cognitive processes while buying. Our study will focus on examining the main differences between men and women’s buying habits.
There are shifts in typical buying behavior and activity by both sexes, as the balance of economic power between them converges. Today, India is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, with the rise of India's Consumer Market, the total consumption in India is likely to quadruple making India the fifth largest consumer market by 2025. So the results of our research can lead a paradigm shift in the way promotional and advertisement campaigns are carried out.

Problem Statement
The purpose of our research is to know the effect of gender and age on the Ahmedabad consumers buying behaviour across two different product categories. The research will compare the affective and the cognitive processes associated with buying behaviour and how it changes with different products.

Management Dilemma
How to choose and design among the various advertising and promotional strategies that help to better target consumers, taking gender and age into consideration.

Management Question: • The optimal promotion and advertising mix based on different target consumers? • How buying behaviour of men and women varies with product categories? • Should the advertisements be gender specific?

Research Question
To conduct a research to gather initial information about the buying behaviour differences between men and women of different age groups spanning across different product categories.

Investigative question
The sample consumers would be asked relevant questions pertaining to the factors they take into consideration while purchasing products of different categories. Based on that, an analysis would be done and report would be prepared.

Limitation and Benefits
Consumer buying behaviour is a very complex process and depends upon various factors like social status, economic factors and psychographic factors influence. All these factors have a cumulative effect on the purchase decision of consumers. However our study has been carried out with two variables age and gender.

The study will help marketers to understand the preferences of the users belonging to different age and gender groups. It will help the marketers to be very clear about their customer base and needs while offering the products. This will help companies in designing their communication messages in accordance with the factors considered most important by a definite age and gender group.

Research Design
Qualitative:
The source of information will be mobile and washing machine consumers based in Ahmedabad. The distribution of respondents will be across different age and gender groups. We propose to survey through questionnaires via different modes of communication like mail and one-to-one basis.

Data Analysis
The response received will be analyzed based on various parameters. The analysis will be done through finding the correlation between gender, age and different buying behavior of the sample. Due care will be taken of any negative remarks and new issues and concerns raised.

Survey Deliverable
After analyzing the human psyche the set of questionnaire will be ready within 10 days from the start of the project.
The survey is expected to be completed in 10 days.
Analyzing and preparing the report will take around 10 days.
Overall, the whole exercise will not take more than 30 days.

Budget
A brief breakup of various cost expected is as below

1. Travel Cost Rs. 800
2. Questionnaire development Rs.150
3. Business Reply fee Rs. 200
4. Report Fee Rs. 500 TOTAL Rs. 1650

Bibliography
Websites

1. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=858553&show=html 2. http://www.reportbuyer.com/consumer_goods_retail/shopping/men_womens_buying_habits.html 3. http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/JHE/JHE-20-0-000-000-2006-Web/JHE-20-4-
000-000-2006-Abstract-PDF/JHE-20-4-237-240-2006-1384-Kishtwaria-J/JHE-20-4-237-240-2006-1384-Kishtwaria-J-Text.pdf
4. http://www.amsreview.org/articles/palan10-2001.pdf

Books 1. Business research methods (Donald R Cooper , Pamela S Schindler)