Impact of Promotional Strategies on Consumer Buying Behaviour for Apparels

One of the basic necessities of human being is apparel. This basic necessity to cover the body has leaped to fashion and lifestyles with growing advancement in human civilization. Apparel is a highly symbolic product category due to its high visibility. The Apparel Industry reflects people's lifestyles and shows their social and economic status (Bhanot S, 2013). Consumer behavior is associated with the culture and economy of a country. There is a need to research on the buying behavior of consumers in organized retail market, as they play the pivotal role to bring the success of any business.

Consumers’ buying behavior has drawn a considerable attention of the earlier researchers. Its impact on designing marketing strategies also became the part of a sizeable number of studies. Recurrent change in lifestyle also dictates a continuous variability in the fashion preference of consumers giving organized retailers a wide scope of opportunity to appear with newer fashion apparels. Various factors like increasing family income, changing lifestyle, development of information technology, working women and increasing promotional strategies have led to changing consumer behavior. In view of the immense and colorful growth of apparel segment at such rapid pace, the proposed study is intended to keep confined only to the organized apparel retailing. The study aims to assess the impact of promotional strategies on consumer buying behavior for apparels bought from organized retail stores. It will help in understanding the promotional strategies, which influence the consumer decision making process.

The study was conducted in 4 major cities of Gujarat which are Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot. The study will also make a contribution towards a comprehensive understanding of the Indian apparel retail market.