Posted on 19th Nov 2024 11:48:44 PM Management
Abstract
This paper examines the consumer attitudes towards automobile in Bangladesh based on the Mertin Fish bein’s Multiatiribute attitude model. The key proposition in Fish bein’s Multiatribute attitude model is that the evaluations of salient beliefs cause overall attitudes. Some important attitudes that affect the brands and attributes choice behavior of automobile have identified where customers give special emphasis. Outcome of the paper may be used as an index by the automobile import companies for improvement of product and formulations markets strategies as well.
Preface
The motivation behind of this research is to know the market condition of automobile specially private car market as a high involvement product in Bangladesh. To know the customer opinion about private car also comment me to run this study. Actually. I conduct this research to acquits knowledge about car market in Bangladesh.
The main purpose of the present study measuring consumers Attitude. Towards automobile Bangladesh. An empirical assessment for brand and attributes were to determine the completive position in different brands of private car in Bangladesh, to point out the effective attributes for measuring customer attitude towards automobile (Private car) in Bangladesh. The present study is based on primary data. In this regard structured questionnaire has been used.
Consumer attitude towards private car is dynamic phenomena. It changes whether changing price. Style, new brand income, development of social stratus.
The consumers attitude are dependent and different product related or non related futures attributes. Such as reasonable price, warranty period. Brand image, country origin, feel consumption air-condition, Nice and suitable interior decoration etc.
Automobile is one kind o f high involvement product. Private car is the univalent restiseous product item that in the modern society especially to the higher income group people. It provides the safe and comfortable journey to the customer. Hence the decision making in private car marketing is becoming more complicated with the enormous/available brand in the market.
Acknowledgement
Every struggle like this one is a result of contributions by many supporting individuals. This study is no exception. I owe special thanks to a number of people and organizations that helped make the internship report feasible. My earnest gratitude goes to the Department of Marketing, University of XYZ for giving me the opportunity to conduct my internship report on Automobile (Private car) in Bangladesh.
Several faculty member of marketing Department had a great influence on my thinking when I conduct my study, My earnest gratitude goes to my honorable supervisor ABC, Professor, Department of Marketing. His contributions in literature surveys in critical discussions, and in on automobile (private car) research other turned the laborious process of writing into an enjoyable and challenging process.
My deep gratitude goes to honorable teacher EFG, Department of marketing, has contributed their special ability to make sense out of confusing paragraphs and has relentlessly kept improving the manuscript till its final deadline. They not only gave the manuscript a scrupulous critical reading, but added many examples and ideas to improve this edition. Their sensitivity, insight, and friendship I highly value.
I would like to give special thanks Ex vice chancellor professor IHC and other department senior professor who encourage me to conduct this study when I collect data from them.
I am indebted to ABC executive sales and marketing. Toyato, Navana Limited, KLC, Brand manager KJL sales and service Rangs automobile limited, RLK senior Executive sales and marketing, Rancon Autos Ltd. MBN, Assit. Manager, sales Multimode Transport consultants Ltd. Multimode group, OWH Engineer services DHS molors Ltd.
I would also like to thank the respondents from different places of Bangladesh specially university teacher, Doctors, Engineer, Banker, Business man from whose I collected data. Their enthusiastic and cordial co-operation helps me to conduct this study fruitfully. I will never forget their friendly approach and helpful attitude.
Finally I must thank to all of m y friends and family members for their support and encouragement.
KHG
MBA (Stream-A) 2024
Department of Marketing
University of XYZ
Introduction
Brand
The American marketing association defines a Brand as a name, term, design symbol, or any other characteristics which makes selling good or service different from goods and services of other sellers. According to Keller (1998) brands have the following role for the consumer, identify the origin of the product, defining the responsibility of the manufacture, diminishing risk, diminishing the cost of searching for a product, a promise, guarantee or contract with the manufacture, a symbolic means and sign of quality. Further more, product brand ensures a place in the store, since consumer pressure storekeepers with demands that particular brands be placed on their shelves. Brand are the means of accomplishing the marketing goal of a company and it is understandable that companies view them as assets. (Tihomir Vranesevi Ranko Stances). According to Trevillon and Pernier (1999) brand are assets because: company may have legal ownership of brands, ownership may be protected by registering the brands, brands may be transferred to others sold; and they are registered for a contain period of time and the registration may be renewed. A brand is something’s that resides in the minds of customers. Branding involves creating mental structure and helping consumers organize their knowledge about products and services in a way that clarifies their decision making and, in the process, provides value to the firm. The key to branding is that customers perceive differences among brands in a product category. Brands differences other are related to attributes or benefits of the product it self. Whenever and wherever customers are deciding between alternatives, brands can play an important decision making role. According, marketer can benefit from branding whenever customer in a choice situation. Brands a name, term, sign, symbol intended to identify the goods or services of one seller(Kotler 1997), have been a part of marketing landscape for many years but in the past few years the future of brands has been questioned (e.s. --- light 1994). In response to the death of brand contentions, researchers have focus their effort of developing a more sophisticated understanding of how strongly brand can be created and nurtured. According to Davis (1995) the approach of managing the brand as an asset is a four step process, developing brand vision, understanding the particularities of a brand, developing and activating the brand management strategy and measuring the brands return on investment. The brand has strategic importance for it owners because they can complete more successfully on the market through brand management. The value of the brand helps companies gain new customers and keep the existing ones. It gives them negotiating power in relation to the sales and distribution channels, increase the competitive advantage and protects from the competition, and it enables an easier implementation its marketing activities in such a way that they enhance brand awareness and positively affect the creation of strong convictions in the consumer consciousness. (Tihomir Vranesevic & Ranko Stance. British food Journal Vol. 106, No. 11, 2003, pp. 811-825). The brand is the most important criterion in choice during the purchasing process. This directly affects the sales volume and business results of the company.
Attitude
The attitude represents affect toward the object (e.g. Buttman 1979). Lutz (1991) considers that attitude are solely an affective construct and reflect a “predispositions” toward an object, which may lead to actual overt behavior. Additionally Lutz (1991) claims that attitudes function as a “fitter” for how an individual perceives an object. Attitudes has been define by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) as ... a learned predispositions to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given objectives. Simoxin and Ruth (1998) report that brand attitude toward specific brands influenced impression of subsequent alliances that brand interred into. Attitude a key concept in psychology. Experts refer attitudes as people’s evaluation. We define attitudes as a persons overall evaluation of a concept. Evaluation as judging whether an aspect of the environment or one’s behavior is good or bad, positive or negative of favorable or unfavorable, it is related to attitudes. Attitudes is related to form decision process. Consumer attitudes are toward some concept. There are two brand types of concept objects and behavior, physical object and social object includes, product, brand, models, stores, people. An attitude is a learned predisposition to respond to an object or class of objects in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way. Numerous studies have reported a relationship between consumes attitudes and their buying behavior regarding both products selected and brands chosen. Surely, then, it is in a marketers best interest to understand how attitudes are formed, the functions they perform, and how they can be changed.
· Attitudes are learned. The information individuals acquire through their direct experiences with a product or an idea, indirect experiences (such as reading about a product in Consumer Reports), and interactions with their social groups, all contribute to the formation of attitudes.
· Attitudes have an object. By definition, we can hold attitudes only toward something. The object can be general (professional sports) or specific (Chicago Cubs.); it can be abstract or concrete or specific. abstract or specific abstract, or concrete. In attempting to determine consumers attitudes, the object of the attitude must be carefully defined, since a person might have a favorable attitude toward the general concept but a negative attitude toward a specific dimension of the concept.
· Attitudes have direction and intensity. Our attitudes are either favorable or unfavorable toward the object. They cannot be neural. In addition, they have a strength. For example, you may mildly like this text or you may like it very much. This factor is important for marketers, since both strongly held favorable and strongly held unfavorable attitudes are difficult to change.
· Attitudes tend to be stable and generalizeable. Once formed, attitudes usually endure, and the longer the are held, the more resistant to change they become. People also have a tendency to generalize attitudes.
A consumer’s attitudes do not always predict purchase behavior. A person may hold very favorable attitudes toward a product but not buy it because of some inhibiting factor. Typical inhibitors are not having enough money or discovering that your preferred product or brand is not available when you want to buy it. Under such circumstances, purchase behavior may even contradict attitudes.
It can be extremely difficult to change strongly held attitudes. Consequently, when the marketer is faced with negative or unfavorable attitudes, there are two options:
· Try to change the attitude to be compatible with the product.
· Determine what the consumers’ attitudes are and then change the product to match those attitudes.
Ordinarily it is much easier to change the product than it is to change consumers’ attitudes.
Nevertheless, in some situations attitudes have been changed. Consider how attitudes have changed in favor of air bags in cars.
Brand Association
Various types of knowledge structure in the brain which contain detailed information or association (Anderson-1983). Aaker (1991) defines brand associations as ... liked in memory to a brand.
Brand Attributes
The brand association type manipulated in the study, are the tangible and intangible features and physical characteristics of the brand (e.g. Ketter 1993).
Brand Image
Brand image can be defined as the perception about a brand as reflected by the brand association held in consumer memory, (Keller 1993), More-ever there are three important aspects to brand image which determined the difference consumer responses to different product. The dimensions are the favourability, strength, and uniqueness of Brand associations. A positive Brand image is vital for defining target market, determining a products position, and measuring market response. Dennis A. Pitta and Lea Prevel Katsanis Jurnal of consumer marketing. Brand image is usually considered as the combined effect of brand associations (e.g. Biel 1992) or more specifically as “the consumers perceptions of the “...brands tangible or intangible associations” (Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard 1993). Kapferer (1992) suggests that the consumers forms an image through a synthesis of all the signals emitted by brand...” Roth (1994) notes that the consumers brand image results from the cumulative effects of the firms marketing mixed activities. Brand image, according to Kapferer, results from the consumer decoding, extracting, and interpreting the brand signals. Marketing research think that brand image is a vital element of brand equity. Brand image, a consumer construct (Kapferer 92), resides in a associative memory Network this is critical to consumer decision making, and potentially provides based brand evocation and evaluation ultimately contributing to brand equity (Holden 1992). As previously suggested in the literature review, brand image has been conceptualized and operationalized in number of ways. Most of the brand image scales come from retail image or self concept/ brand/ image/store image congruence studies (e.s. Birdwell 1968 Sirgy 1985).
Definition of Price
Within this economic context, it is usual to think of price as the amount of money we must sacrifice to acquire something we desire. That is, we consider price as a formal ratio indicating the quantities of money (or goods and services) needed to acquire a given quantity of goods or services.
Thus, price is the amount of money and services (or goods) the buyer exchanges for an assortment of products and services provided by the seller. The variety of ways to change price makes pricing a very important marketing decision. As mentioned previously, paying attention to both the numerator and denominator provides opportunities to make the offer more unusual, even if the product otherwise are considered to be a commodity.
Warranty
A written agreement in which a company selling something promises to repair or replace it if there is a problem with in a particular period of time. Warranty period is that time from selling the product and the last replace or repair stipulated time. The purpose of a warranty is to assure buyers they will be compensated in case the product does not perform up to reasonable expectations. In the year past, courts seemed to recognize only express warranties those stated in written or spoken words. Usually these were quite limited in their coverage and seemed mainly to project the seller from buyers claims. But time change! Consumer complaints led to governmental campaign to the consumer in many areas, including product warranties. Courts and government agencies have broadened the scope of warranty coverage by recognizing implied warranty. This means that a warranty was intended, although not actually stated, by seller. Furthermore, producers are being held responsible, even when the sales contract is between the retailer and the consumer. During the past three decades, many producers were held liable for product caused injury. In many cases, firms were liable even if they were not negligent in production. The term product liability became common in the business world, numerous lawsuits ensured. Product liability is a legal action asserting that an illness, accident, or death resulted from the named product because it was harmful, faulty, or inadequately labeled. Producers have begun to respond to legislation and consumer complaints by broadening and simplifying their warranties, manufactures are also using expanded labels on their goods to tell consumers not to measure the product and to inform them of almost every conceivable danger associated with using it. Such warning may go so far as to state, “Do not drive with sun shield in place. Remove from windshield before starting ignition” Do not use ladder in front of unlocked door’s. Producer are hopeful that such blatant and seemingly obvious warnings will protect them against claims that they did not properly inform consumers about the products use, ..., and potential dangers. Besides such defensive measures, some companies have gone on the offensive. Many sellers/Vendors are using their warranties as promotional devices to stimulate purchases byraducing customers risks. The effective handling of consumers complaints related to warranties can be a significant factor in strengthening a companies marketing’s program. Xe rox corp. instituted a guarantee under which the consumer, not the company, decides, whether a poorly functioning product should be replace with a new model. And Wal-Marts warranty is simple and convincing satisfaction Granted, period.” These examples indicate how some companies recognize the importance of warranties.
Counting of origin
The country of origin effect and product consumption conspicuousness is examined. This study strangeness our understanding of the importance of the country of origin effect as it investigated with respect to consumer, purchasing intentions public vs private, and luxury vs necessary product. A products country of origin has a strong effect when considering luxury products. The conspicuous aspects come second. Marketer and consumer behavior researchers generally accept that a products country of origin is important in consumer decision making, (Francis Piron 2000). Imagery of the COO is defined as:
The Picture, the reputation, the stereotype that business man and customers affect to product of a specific country. COO image is created by such variable as representative products, national characteristics, economic and political background, history and traditions (Nagashime 1970, P. 68). Country image is also view as:
The overall perception consumers from of products from a particular country, based on their prior perception of the countries production and marketing strength and weakness (Rote and Romeo, 1992, P. 479). The country of origin may also act as a summary construct, directly affecting consumers attributes towards the brand of a country instead of through product attribute rating (Wright, 1975). Samli 1995 summarizes well the phenomenon, stating that the COO concept is a critical information case, which plays a major role in having the product accepted in different world markets.
Product related feature
It is to be expected that, when deciding on the purchase, consumer evaluate physical characteristics of a particular product, like, shape, size, etc and compare them to the characteristics of competing brand.
Fuel consumption
Fuel is any material that produces power, usually when it bent. Fuel is integral product related feature of automobile. Less fuel consumption car is the best choice of the customer. It influences the customer buying decision process.
Nice and suitable interior Decoration
Nice means present, enjoyable, attractive and suitable means right or appropriate for particular purpose. So, Nice and suitable decoration means present, enjoyable, attractive and right and appropriate interior decoration of car that provide the customer with comfort.
Easy to control and Drive
Easy to ... and control mean it not need lot of effort and free from problems. That is user-friendly. Easy drive and control power provides the passage safety from accident and ....
Spans pants
Spare parts is the alternative part new part instead of spoil or scrape parts. That means a new part that buy to replace an old or broken parts of car.
Longevity
Long life car that the tact of lassies the car, long time. That is the durability of car for long time.
Maximum Speed range
The sped range of car with in specific time.
Air-condition
A system that cools and dries the air in a car. Air condition is much more importance system that gives the passage trash new and reduce tiredness.
Powerful Engine
Powerful engine means the engine that contain huge energy and capacity to run the way. The private can which has more power can move zigzag way and bear high load.
Stylish/new brand
The car which is fashionable, elegant, and attractive and which is completely new. The brand new car is much more attractive to the young generation. A new brand meaning for pleasure for voyage and add a new touch of glory to your person on the road.
Conceptual Framework
While attitudes cannot be directly observed because of their covert nature, they are nevertheless useful because they are assumed to be precursors of behavior. In other words, an attitude is a predisposition to respond overtly and that this predisposition leads to actual overt behavior. Marketers stand to benefit from favorable consumer attitudes, as reflected in the consistency of consumer behaviors with respect to their brand (Kim, 2002). The presumed “attitude-leads-to-behavior” relationship allows the use of attitude measurements as predictors of behaviors toward the brand in the marketplace. Researchers in a variety of marketing settings have found intentions to be very good predictors of subsequent behavior. This is because in order to predict a specific behavior (such as purchasing of a particular brand during some specified time period). It is necessary to measure the person’s attitude toward the object at which the behavior is directed. Private car is important product for our modern life. Consumers mainly purchase this product for travel to work place, travel to long distance, to deliver kids to school, to go shopping, visiting friends, maintain status, to put forward them to the society tells their achievement, standard life stations of life, running errands. Consumers always try to buy the product based on a lot of attributes. The main attributes those have been considered for the convenience of the study are Reasonable Price, Warranty period, Brand image, Stylish/new brand, Country of origin, Less fuel consumption, Nice and suitable interior decoration, Easy to drive and control, Availability of spares parts, Longevity, Maximum speed range, Air-condition, Powerful engine. Familiar brands Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, Honda, Maruti Suzuki, and Mitsubishi are considered for each attribute. These attributes do not exist equally in all mentioned brands. The attitude of consumers towards a brand is very important to the manufacturing companies and marketing managers for their total marketing strategies. Therefore, the focus of the study is to look for the situation of consumer brand choice behavior on the basis of different product non-related and product related attributes towards a specific brand of automobile (private car).
Research questions and objectives of the study
Conducting the study mainly to find out the answers that “what is the overall competitive position in different brands of Automobile (private car) in Bangladesh?” In this study discussion is summarized the following specific research questions:
1. What are the different Automobile (private car) brands those are usually consuming in Bangladesh?
2. What different trivial attributes are loyally by Bangladesh consumers?
3. What are the effective attributes that affect the overall brand choice attitude and behavior?
4. What is the competitive position among the brands of Automobile (private car) in terms of overall attitude?
5. What does the role of each attribute for each brands attitude?
6. What are the implications in this study?
Thus, the overall objective of this study is to clarify Measuring Consumers Attitude towards Automobiles in Bangladesh. The specific objectives of this study are as follows:
1. To know the different Automobile (private car) those are usually using in Bangladesh.
2. To identify to popular Automobile (private car) brands and attributes of concern brands which lead the benefits of it’s to the consumers.
3. To examine the overall evaluation and salient belief of customers towards Automobile (private car) brand which are popular in Bangladesh based on considerable attributes.
4. To identify the position of different Automobile (private car) brands that are most widely used in Bangladesh based on Fishbein’s Multiattribute Attitude Model.
5. To know and analyze the role of each attributes for each brands attitude.
To provide the possible suggestions to the Automobile (private car) manufacturing companies and other related people to be concentrated to improve their product’s attributes those are liked by consumers for their marketing mix strategies.
Literature Review
Since the researcher do not get available literature in Bangladesh market. The review ... literature. The researcher has reviewed the literature relating to different factors that influence the consumer behavior towards the various brand in the world market.
In the world market lack yen analysis is brand equity really the driver behind the relative success of one of two identical cars sold in the US market place or are there deeper issues relating to marketing strategy and the antecedents of branding? The authors examines the fate of the Toyota corolla and Chevrolet Prism and compares it to senator Buttress plan of Australia in the late 1990’s during which the Australian big five were forced to rely on badge engineering to ... their product.
The author concludes that some automobile brands have matured into extendable attitudes conducive to their survived while anthers remain fixed in narrow, product reliant riches.
He mentions in his analysis and compare various brand in the world market specially US, Australia, Europe and Japan. The author mansion, Toyota corolla. Cherokee Prism, Nissan ford, BMW, Mitsubishi, Holden, Mercedes benz, Mercedes A class, C class, M class, Honda. Kick yen said if Mercedes Benz’s consistent product design is right for branding, then Toyota’s is wrong, but one might conclude that the authors of that article were in correct in their view of Toyota, or that there are other branding antecedents at play.
Toyota products can not be identified as rapidly Mercedes. The Japanese automaker purposely creates model lines that do not fit to gather in a coherent angel, because its home market buyers do not care about purchasing into a Toyota heritage. Rather the consumer purchases automobiles based on individual styling.
On the other hand European ... build on their pedigree and European customers prefer to buy from an identifiable range of automobiles a range orientation, for want of a better term. There are other things that identify Toyota, from the way the company strives for continuous quality improvement to the customer service which keeps customers return.
From the above discussion we can suggest that the customer influence by brand attitudes as well as product design.
Limitations of the Study
Problems that were arisen during the research, the researcher should state such limitation to provide the reader with insight into special conditions pertaining to the work. In many times internship program becomes difficult due to shortage of some elements as a result our ideas remain simply bookish and our knowledge incomplete. During conducting research, some sorts of limitations were faced, which are as under:
1. Availability of secondary data: Secondary data is very essential for conducting fruitful research. There is a limitation in selecting sample size in our research. We just select 75 sample following thumb rule. It is because, there is no available data regarding car users. Thus, it is a limitation for the research.
2. Time Limitation: The internship is a vital program. It takes time for proper completion viz. preparing questionnaire, pretest, data collection, data analysis, report writing and so on. But we do not get enough time to prepare a standard report. If we would get adequate time, we can be able to collect adequate data and information as well as present a nice paper.
3. Monetary Limitation: As my study Dhaka, Rajshahi, it requires hues amount of money for traveling, questionnaire preparation, data collection etc. But there is no or little support form the university authority. Thus, due to monetary limitation, I was to face a lot of hindrances to do this research work.
4. Limitation related with administrate secrecy: Every concerned authority has the strict security system of their data and conformation. In order to keep secrecy, all information was not disclosed to me, which might be helpful for my study.
5. Lack of Co-operation Though I got co-operation from the concerned officials out they were not always available to meet my requirements.
Research Methodology
As the main purpose of the study is to measure consumers attitude towards Automobile (private car) high involvement product empirically, it includes sample, sample size, sample selection procedures, pretest and data analyses etc are being detailed.
Different brands of Automobile (private car) are presently available in the market (table 1 in appendix). Out of these brands Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, Honda, Maruti Suzuki, Mitsubishi have regular demand, supply, and sales as per consumer opinions. The respondents cited about sixty attributes (table 2 in appendix). But only thirteen attributes, Reasonable variation, Warranty period, Brand image, Stylish/brand new, Country of origin, Less fuel consumption, Nice and suitable interior decoration, Easy to drive and control, Availability of spares parts, Longevity, Maximum speed range, Air-condition, Powerful engine. In both cases brands and attributes those have ---% and above opinion of consumer have been considered for the final study.
Questionnaire Design
Questionnaire design is an important step in formulating a research design. Questionnaire is a structured technique for data collection considering of a series of questions, written or verbal, to which a respondent replies (Malhotra, 2003). A standardized questionnaire will ensure comparability of the data, increase speed and accuracy of recording, and facilitate data processing. In this research, the data is collected mainly through two questionnaires. The first questionnaire was pretest which aim to assess the different brand and identify the factors/attributes that influence the consumer car choice behavior. The second one was final questionnaire that measure the intensity of factor that in brand choice.
Pretest
Pretest refers to the testing of the questionnaire on a small sample of respondents in order to identify and eliminate potential problems. (Malhotra, 2003). Even the best questionnaire can be improved by pretesting. As a general rule a questionnaire should not be used in the field survey without adequate pretesting.
Pretest-1: The first questionnaire is developed in order to identify the factors/attributes and most preferable brand. The questionnaire contains the name of the respondents, profession, name of brand and mention, name of the influential factors/attributes that leads to choose brand. Here the respondent was restricted to mention six brand and 6 factors/attributes. In order to avoid undue influence toward the respondent, the questionnaire is prepared and filled up by the 10 respondents as pretest. According to their argument and problem recognition, the questionnaire is moderated, reconstructed and send for actual respondents.
Pretest-2: The reconstructed questionnaire is photocopied and reached to 40 respondents. The respondents were in different professions, like, university teacher, Doctors, businessmen, officials so on. Not only the questionnaire filled up from them but their comments and recommendations are also granted which might focus on the next chapters.
All data are stored, classified, and sorted with the computer application. There were 48 more brand and 60 influential factors/attributes identified. They are percentage and on the basis of it the priority of brand and the influential factors/attributes are measured.
Pretest-3: According to the identified factors/attributes the questionnaire had been prepared. The questionnaire contains four divisions. The first part contains 5questions to asses how extremely good, or extremely bad with the each of the statement. The second portion indicate how strongly believe or disbelieve with the factors/attributes. The third portion contains the personal information (Demographic Factors) of the respondents. They were asked about profession, age, gender, family members, family life cycle, income, education, origin. And the last portion contains general information related to car marketing the Bangladesh. It includes brand new instead of recondition car, promotion.
Molhotra (2003) argued that the pretest sample size should small, varying from 15 to 30 respondents. Thus the computer composed questionnaires were tested by 20 respondents of different professionals. They faced some problems while putting their opinion. In order to remove these problems the questionnaire was reconstructed.
Final Questionnaire
The third pretest identified the questionnaire contains different problems, thus they are eliminated and reconstructed. The questionnaire taken to the respondents in computer composed and photocopied from.
Scaling
Scaling may be considered an extension of measurement. Scaling involves creation a continuum on which measured objects is located. There are two major types of scaling techniques, comparative scale and comparative and non comparative scale. For our study we choose Likert scale, a division of non comparative.
Liker Scale
Likert scale are of the ordinal type; they enable one to rank attitudes, but not to measure the difference between attitudes (Boyd, 2003). A measurement scale with five response categories ranging from “Strongly disagree”to “Strongly agree”, which requires the respondents to indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement with each of a series of statement related to the stimulus objects (Malhotra, 2003).
Reason behind choosing Likert Scale
Our research work is based on non comparative scaling technique. Among the different categories of non comparative scaling technique, Likert is one of them. A 5 point Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) was used in this study for all the scale items as this scale is easy to prepare and interpret, and also simple for respondents to answer (Zebal, 2005; Zikmund, 2000). Malhorta (2003) argued that the Likert scale has several advantages. He said it is easy to constructs and administer. Respondents readily understand how to use the scale, making it suitable for mail, telephone, or personal interviews. As our respondent is from different destination and different categories (literate or illiterate; male or female; different income group), s the likert scale is very effective for our study. Thus Likert scale is taken this research as the scaling technique.
The population for this study comprised the large number of profession level people used from Dhaka and Rajshahi. A sample is a subgroup of the elements of the population selected for participation in the study (Malhortra, 2003) Kotler et. al. (2004) describes sample as is a segment of the population selected to represent the population as a whole. Really the sample should be representative and allow the researcher to make accurate estimates of the thoughts and behaviors of the larger population. There were 40 respondents who were University teachers, Doctors, engineers, Bankers, Business man, govt. employee and other officials for the brand and factors/attributes identification. The were 75 respondent were from different age, profession, income group, regions, sex and so on. They were asked to mark the intensity of their beliefs, agreement and favorability toward the different influencing factors attributes.
Convenience sampling techniques is used for sample design in this study. It attempts to obtain a sample of convenient elements. It is the least expensive and least time consuming of all sampling techniques. The sampling units are accessible to measure and co-operative. Under convenience sampling respondents are selected because they happen to be in the right place at the right time (Malhorta, 1996).
Data Collection
Data collection is the main part of research. There are two types of data generally used to perform a research; primary and secondary data. This research study has been conducted on the basis o both primary and secondary data. Primary data has been collected from primary source and secondary data has been collected from secondary source. Using both these sources of data increases the validity of a study, since the data can be confirmed by many sources.
Primary data
In order o find our phenomena according to a specific research problem, primary data (new data) has been collected through some particular questions. The primary data are generated by the way of observations, interviews or surveys. In our research, using in-depth interview, structured questionnaire, has collected primary data. A non probability sampling method has been used to collect the primary data. The main data collection method of this internship report has been quantitative interviews with respondents in Rajshahi and Dhaka.
Data Collection Process
Collection of primary data is the most common form of an empirical research. An empirical research is probably based on interviews, especially when the researcher is searching for in depth information about a phenomenon. There are several types of interviews to choose from. But for our research we maintain the following procedure.
First, we make initial contact with the respondent. Secondly, we offer them questionnaire. Thirdly, we motivate them and make them clear about filling up the questionnaire. Fourthly, we provide supportive equipments (pen, paperboard) with questionnaire, seventy five questionnaire collection and termination.
In our research (40+75) interviews has been taken using, semi structured and structured questionnaire. For the first questionnaire, his semi- structured used because it gave the opportunity to find out he name of the different brand and factors/ attributes. Most of the semi structured interviews were conducted with the university teachers, Doctors, businessman, and officials and so on. Seventy-five structured questionnaires were filled up by the respondents form Dhaka and Rajshahi.
Secondary data
Data already collected for the same purpose or for another reason may be of high value when trying to solve a specific research problem. This data is called secondary data. Secondary data is collected for purposively other than the problem at hand, while primary data are data originated by a researcher for he specific purpose of addressing the problem at hand. Secondary data has been collected from the published materials of the concerned bodies and officials. Internet was played a vita role for collecting the secondary data
Data Analysis
Each completed questionnaire was checked immediately after the completion of each interview. Completed questionnaires were check once more prior to computer entry to find out if there were any problems. The statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS 11.5) was used for data analysis. For this purpose, firstly all the variables are assigned with names and coded for computer entry with the help of Microsoft Excel. Secondly, once the data entry was completed, data files are carefully screened in order to minimize the data entry errors. In this connection frequencies for each variable were checked in order to detect the out of range values and values entered that greater than 5 were rectified after recoiling with the questionnaires.
In seeking answer to the research question stepwise regression analysis was used. Stepwise regression analysis is a data analysis technique that adds independent variables one by one into he regression as they meet pre-specified contribution becomes insignificant (Zebal, 2005).
Conclusion purpose
This paper is divided into five sections. The next section provides a theoretical foundation for this research. The third section describes the data collection procedure. Section four reveals the data analysis procedure of the study and the concluding section provides a discussion o the findings and implication for this research.
Recommendation and Conclusion
In consideration/discussion description and analysis of the each chapter we have rut forwarded a number of recommendations that are essential for the development of car marketing in Bangladesh.
In following section, we list some of the important policy and recommendation for considerations of appropriate authorities.
1. From the study, we see that 4.27% customer very strongly believe that reasonable price is much more important. Price is an product non-related features. The general consumer of Bangladesh is highly price sensitive. So, keeping in mixed the concerned authorities should take creative price policy that helps the customer to meet their demand. Because we know demand depends on purchasing capacity, willingness of purchases and expends willingness to the money for the product.
2. We know the brand is the most important criterion in choice during the purchasing process. This directly affects the sales volume and business result of the company. So, concerned authorities of marketing division should step to create strong brand image among the consumer. 54.7% Bangladeshi consumer strongly believe that brand image is an important ... of private car.
3. You will be wondered about the difference in the tastes of men and women when it comes to cars. Clearly men prefer car that look tough and masculine and ooze power while women prefer cars that are cute and stylish. Well that true to a certain extent, according to a recent study on car ownership between the sexes. Men like/love luxurious, high performance cars, preferably with a horsepower of 367 or more. On the other hand, women prefer cars that are affordable, practical and safe. 36.00% customer in Bangladesh prefers new brand/stylish car. So, the concerned authority should take initiate to import such type of car that meet the common interest of men and women.
4. Warranty is a written agreement in which a company selling some promises to repair or replace it if there is a problem with in a particular period of time. Since the income of Bangladesh consumer/car users are limited so they need long warranty period because they cannot buy new car several time. The concerned authorities should take step to gives the customer more warranty for proper customer satisfaction.
5. From the recent study we observed that Country of origin (COO) has lot of influence in car choice behavior of Bangladeshi consumer. They prefer Japanese and somewhat German car. Head on it the car marketer will take decision.
6. It is a burning question to the Bangladeshi car user that how much fuel is needed to run a specific mileage. The researcher from the practical field observed that the car user emphasis much on less fuel consumption than the other common feature of the car. So, the car importer should import that types of car that fuel consumption is within reasonable limit and the car should have fuel consumption capacity to CNG, natural gees price is comparatively low in Bangladesh.
7. Several car user choice nice and suitable interior decorations. They want more space, more set capacity. The researcher directly observed that generally several of the consumer without office goers, use car to deliver kids to school, to go shopping, visiting relatives house. 44% Bangladeshi car user emphasis rice decoration. So, the car importer should consider the facts
8. Every consumer want safe and comfortable journey, no one take life risk. The road in Bangladesh is not such as developed countries road. Accident is a common phenomenon on our road. The research observed that emphasis easy control of the car. So the car importer that car with good acceleration and built tough for the roads of Bangladesh.
9. We observed in practical field that several of the car user of Bangladesh use recondition car. So the car requires maintenance and repair and available sprats part. Recondition car spare part is available in the market but the consumer who use new brand car they face unbearable problem if any parts scraped. So the brand new car importer should supply spare part at least each division and some large districts town, to release their customer tension.
10. Several of the car user in Bangladesh want long durable car. Because car a high involvement product and it import tax, tariffs, make more expensive. So every year it impossible for them to buy new ca due to their limited income. So the car importer should import longevity car.
11. While collecting data. the respondent express different factors like, price, size, function, fuel economy, safety, speedy easy to drive, low pollution car as well as air condition. From the direct observation we see 49.3% car user emphasis air condition system in their car. So the concerned authority should always supply air condition system in their marketed car.
12. Several of the car user use recondition car and someone are brand new car. When we asked question to them customer will buy brand new car instead of recondition car only 25.3% believe this statement. Head on these the car marketer should developed their marketing strategy.
13. From the survey we realized that 34.7% customer believe, 32.0% consumer, strongly believe, and 25.3% consumer very strongly believe that promotion is much more important for car marketing. From my practical knowledge I would like to suggest since car is a technical product so it is important to supply the derails information to the customer. So, they concerned authority should use newspaper. Magazine based advertising and car fair car exhibition that will be much more effective for car promotion in Bangladeshi market.
14. When use run the data collection process then we observed there are car choice variation among generation, the old generation like recondition car, but the new generation like new brand, stylish car. And we observed that now a days brand awareness among the young generation is more that the after generation variation when they import car.
15. When use asked question to the car user do you support the car market will be change within three/five year 36.0% support and 40.0% strongly support the statement. So, the car marketer should consider the prospective market in future.
Finally the researcher observed that the Bangladeshi consumer search information and get information when they the their buying decision 48% from friends, 29.3% from relatives 4.0% company sales man and 9.3% from other, 5.3% from adverting, 4.0% from car fair.
From the analysis result we can easily suggest that developed strong relationship with the past customer will gives the company more success for car marketing in Bangladesh.
The reason behind that the past car buyer will patronize the car company when this/her relatives, friend buy the car. He developed strong won of mouth communication.
Measuring, Consumers, Attitude, Automobiles, Bangladesh, Empirical, Assessment, Brand, Toyato, Navana, KLC, Brand, KJL, Rangs, Rancon, Autos, Multimode, Transport, Consultants, DHS, Molors
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