Questionnaire on fashion brands Essay

Factors touching Consumer Preference of International Brands over local anaesthetic BrandsZeenat Ismail1, Sarah Masood2 and Zainab Mehmood Tawab21Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Business disposition Karachi 2Students of Institute of Business Administration KarachiAbstract This study was conducted in order to determine the consumer orientation courses of spheric mails instead of local ones. It is similarly designed to find erupt the tainting demeanour patterns of young Pakistani consumers Consumer evaluates yields based on information cues, which be intrinsic and extrinsic. A number of factors reckon the consumer secure purposes. The results fire that some important factors that influence a consumers final decision atomic number 18 the equipment casualty and calibre of the product in question. Since the consumers usually associate the expense of the denounce with its tonicity, a home run priced too dispirited is generally comprehendd as a low l umber product. Similarly, a product priced too juicy gear may not be affordable by many.Other factors that have an impaction on the consumer alternatives are consumer ethnocentrism, coun crusade of antecedent, neighborly precondition, price relativity with the competing brands and family and friends. The research was conducted in Karachi and the samples selected allowd 200 hoi polloi of get along with 16-24. The data cleared for the research was through a questionnaire and was conducted in devil popular shopping malls of the urban center and two universities since the target audience was largely the jejuneness. Calculations were then analyzed and interpreted using a character of respondents and through frequency distribution tables and charts.Keywords Consumer preference, International brands, Local brands1. IntroductionGlobalization is an inevitable phenomenon that is leading the accurate world towards becoming one market, a ball-shaped village. Not only has the pr ocess of world(prenominal)ization aid immensely in the exchange of goods and run, information and friendship through the reductions in supranational barriers, but it has likewise led the world into becoming a real single universal community comprising of people from divers(prenominal) cultures, thus resulting in the shrinkage of the world. With the world becoming a single market, sphericization has had a major contribution in enabling the organizations worldwide to step out of the restricted domestic markets and to set up their operations across the globe with confidence. This has largely led to a decline in the importance in national borders and a greater emphasis on what the consumers in reality demand be the consumers located in the very country in which the organization exists or an entirely different part of the world.Moreover, with the rapid enlarge in orbicular competition, companies that strictly adhere to and cater to the needs of the local markets are finding t hemselves at a disadvantage and gradually loosing the competitive advantage that they so much strived to achieve. However, for some products and services the tastes and preferences of consumers in different nations are beginning to converge on some global norm (Holt 2002). From a consumer perspective, however, reactions to the prevalence of global brands seem to vary among the different customers. On the one hand, consumers seem to value and admire global brands and regard such brands as a status symbol. On the other hand, global brands are very much criticized for threatening the local differences and imposing the western cultures on our society, leading to a loss of cultural individualism.2. blueprint of the studyEmail zismailiba.edu.pk Tel +92(333) 3775545 Fax +92(21) 38103008 54This study is aimed at determining consumer preference of the youth of remote brands instead of national or local brands in Pakistan. There are various factors which influence consumer bargain for decision. Such as coarse of origin, price of the brand contrive, family and friends, brand name, availability, advertising campaigns, consumers ethnocentrism etc. The study is also designed to find out the buying behaviour patterns of the young Pakistani consumers, attitudes towards global and local brands and the preference for foreign brands.3. Literature look intoBrands have been constantly reviewed and redefined in the merchandising literature and there are numerous definitions for brand. A definition of a brand by The Ameri throne market tie-up (AMA) in the 1960s (Keller, 19982) is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate them from those of competitors. For consumers, when deciding between brands which are in the market will include brands as an element to determine the qualities of the product rather than employing their time to enhance their knowledge o f the product in information searching activities. Therefore, consumers use brands as cues to make decisions to purchase or try products (Ger et al., 1993).4. QualityPerceived quality is defined as the consumers judgment about an entitys (services) overall worthiness or superiority (Zeithaml, 1988 and Rowley, 1998). Research also indicates that consumers value global brands especially for their assumed high quality and prestigious image (e.g., Nguyen, Barrett and Miller 2005 Steenkamp, Batra and Alden 2003). An internationally well-established brand name can act as a halo constructs that effects quality beliefs (Han 1989). If a brand is perceived as globally available, consumers are believably to attribute a superior quality to the brand, since such quality is thought of as a prerequisite for international acceptance.5. Country of originThe country of origin effect has been defined as the positive and invalidating influence that a products country of manufacture may have on cons umers decision making processes or subsequent behavior (Elliott and Cameron, 1994). 1991). Infact in the words of Nagashima (1970), COE can be defined asthe picture, the reputation, and the stereotype that businessmen and consumers attach to products or brands of a specific country. This image is created by such variables as representative products, national features, economic and political background, history, and traditions. The literature on country-of-origin effects is quite rich and covers the motif from different perspectives in different countries.Some studies have shown that country of origin also has symbolic and turned on(p) meaning to consumes, and it plays an important role along with other attributes such as quality and reliability in shaping consumers attitudes toward products. Moreover, attitudes and perceptions of consumers toward brands and products will depend on categories, for instance, electronic goods from Italy may be perceived as a poor quality but Italian clothing would be perceive as personal mannerable and high quality (Bikey and Nes, 1982). This would be differently perceived with Japanese brands as Japanese electronic goods would be perceive with positive attitudes and Japanese clothing will be negatively perceived.6. PriceResearchers found out that formerly consumers perceive a price difference between local-owned and foreignowned brands, price dissimilarities begin to affect their preference for local-owned brands. Therefore, since price is also one of the most important extrinsic cues that consumers use when evaluating the product/brand (Hansen, 2005), we test the impact of price against consumers ethnocentric tendencies to determine at what point consumers are willing to forsake preference for local products for a greater price discount with foreignowned products.7. Social status55Authors have dysphoric that consumers may prefer global brands because of associations of high prestige (Schuiling & Kapferer, 2004 Shocker, S rivastava, & Rueckert, 1994 Steenkamp, et. al., 2003). Global brands may have a higher prestige than local brands due to their relative scarcity and higher price. Further more than, global brands may also indorse for cosmopolitanism.Some consumers prefer global brands because they enhance their selfimage as creation cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and modern. Conversely, according to Ger (1999), local brands tend to be targeted and positioned based on a deep cultural understanding and therefore create a sustainable unique value and offer the symbolism of authenticity and prestige. Still, consumers have been found to have no intrinsic preference for global brands (De Mooij, 1998).8. Friends and familyReference groups include groups or people whom one can formulation up for guidance and ask for opinion. These are important source of influencing the brand purchases. Reference group include friends and family who influence ones buying decisions due to special skills, knowledge, personal ity. If a friend had a bad experience with a product, it is more likely that one will refrain from buying it. However many studies found out that, knowledge that consumers obtain through direct personal experience will be perceived to be more trustworthy than information from other communications. This results in more strongly held beliefs (Swaminathan et al., 2001).9. Research capitulumsThe reasons for consumer preference of global brands over the local ones. The product attributes that are mostly seeed by consumers when buying a brand. The demographic characteristic of consumers who buy foreign brands more frequently.10. Research methodologyThis study is a descriptive study and more of a qualitative nature and was conducted to identify and analyze the reasons why consumers prefer international brands to national brands when acquire consumer goods. The sample for this research included the 200 consumers whose ages ranged from 16-24 years from Karachi. Simple random sampling was employ for this study.Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. The questionnaire included closed ended questions and Likert scale is used in most of the questions. These questionnaires were distributed to collect data from the students ofInstitute of Business Administration itself as well as the students of Institute of Business Management. away from this, we also visited Park Towers shopping mall and The Forum, the two leading shopping malls in Karachi, with the aim of solicitation data for our research from the shoppers there. 50 questionnaires were distributed to each of the universities and shopping malls in equal proportion to males and females.We mainly sort out our population according to gender. Frequency distribution and bar charts have been used to evaluate the results. In adjunct to this, the means of different factors that influence consumers preferences of the local and global brands were used to determine which factors are considered the most by consumers when get different brands.11. Findings and Discussion11.1. Question 1Do you use international brands products?56 fit to the data collected, 72.5% of the people used international brands of which 60 were male and 85 were females. 18.5% of the people questioned claimed to use international brands occasionally, whereas, 9.1% of the people claimed not to use global brands at all. As indicated in the pie charts higher up,18.5% of the people who used the global brands sometimes included 28 males and 9 females, and those who did not use the global brands consisted of 12 males and 6 females.11.2. Question 2If an international brand and a national brand are priced same, would you prefer the international brand?The purpose of this question was to evaluate and discover how important a factor such as price is in determining whether the consumers would go for the domestic brand or stick to the global one if both(prenominal) the products were inthe same price range. The results found out that 76% of the consumers would go for the international brands whereas 24% would fluid purchase the domestic ones.11.3. Question 3Do you consider where a product is manufactured when purchasing it? FrequencydisResponsesThis question was asked to discover how much importance the youth lay on the country of origin as a factor when making a purchase. The results revealed far different results compared to what had been stated by the review of previous researches done. As indicated in the graph, the youth was found to be mailnly ignorant of the country in which the brand was manufactured. Majority of the consumers (76% males and 88% females) did not consider it as significant a factor as to affect his or her purchase decision.11.4. Question 4It is said that people buy international products so that they can be accepted in a particular social group. Do you agree?57The results to these two questions confirmed the general perception that exists in our society, that is, the global are purchase d as a status symbol.The youth mainly bought foreign branded products to be able to fit in a particular social group. This occurs largely because peer pressure tends to be high at this age, and most of the people find themselves being victims of inferiority complexes. The results to the first of these questions indicated that on average 75% of the youth (71 males and 79 females) purchased the international and local brands as a status symbol. These results were further enhanced by the results to the next question, which showed that 72% of the males and 68% of the females did, infact, believe that the people purchased the international brands to be able to fit in a particular social group.The table above compares the means of the different factors in influencing consumer preferences of the global brands over the local ones. The means, expressed in percentages, indicates that amongst all the factors, the quality of the branded product was considered the most important factor in shapin g the consumers purchase decision. The current trends and fashion were found to be just as important, but the price of the product was not found to be more important than the prevailing fashion and styles.The reason why 85% of the people decide to buy a particular brand was mainly because it was reflective of the ongoing fashion and there were only 5% people on average, who did not give importance to the ongoing fashion when purchasing a product. The results revealed that price was rated as the third most important factor in influencing consumer choice, whereas the quality of the product was considered the most significant, followed by the current trends and fashion.Mean number of people ( in percentages)YesSometimes76%16.5%Price of the product4.5%13.5%Country of origin87.5%7.5%Quality of the product75%15.5%Status symbol85%10%Current fashion and trends64.5%17.55%Family and friends60%20.5%EthnocentrismNo7.5%82%5%9.5%5%18%19.5%Country of origin, as a factor in influencing consumers ch oice of the brand was hardly a significant factor, since 82% of the people, on, average claimed that they did not consider which country a product is manufactured in when making purchase decisions. Only 4.5% people, on average, claimed that they do consider the country of origin when purchasing a brand. The ethnocentrism factor was considered by 60% of the people questioned. This indicates that most of the people believed that as a Pakistani we should buy our local brands rather than giving preference to the global brands, however, this was what they believed to be the ideal scenario.In practice, our people, especially the females were found to be extremely prone to the global brands. gibe to our findings, 78% of the females were not willing to even substitute the global brand with a domestic if the foreignbrand is not available. The males, however, were not found to be that prone to the foreign brand.The results also show that status symbol is also perceived to be a major factor i n shaping consumer purchase decisions. The above table reveals that 75% of the people linked the branded product with their social status when actually purchasing it. The table provides a summary and ratings of the factors influencing consumer preferences of the national or international brand.12. References581 Balabanis, G., Diamantopoulos, A., Mueller, R. and Melewar, T.C. 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