An empirical study of consumer buying cycle in Asia's 7th fastest growing city

Selling a product with lightening fast speed is always a fascination for marketer but does it really happen? Not always- Ram and Shyam went to buy a new Air Conditioner; Ram bought it on the same day but Shyam took purchase time of 7 days. This shows that buying cycle varies from individual to individual; some are very short and some are very long, because not every consumer is the same. This is obviously interesting and from here comes the topic for our research:

“Does consumer buying cycle differ from business class to service class?”

It is really challenging to measure Critical time taken by consumer to buy high involvement product. So, to get a better insight on consumer buying time we are submitting this research. Our research also analyzes about how buying behavioral patterns for a service class differs from a business class in consideration with the time factor. Most purchases are made to satisfy a problem. Analysis of problem recognition can be done through the ‘means-end’ chain concept.

The consumers, who shop in general stores, consumer durable shops, shopping malls, small retail outlets, etc in the area of Bhilai & Durg(Chhattisgarh) were taken as the population for this study. A convenient sample (non-probability sampling method) size of consumer was pooled up for the current study in which respondents of this study were requested to complete the questionnaire on voluntary basis and not a single attempt was made to chase non-respondents.

The research is carried out by using methodology like some primary and secondary research. In primary research consist of interview with the store owner & questionnaire for customers. We have collected the data with the help of questionnaire which will help us to give the statistical data that would be more accurate. The secondary research was study of consumer behavior and the complete purchasing decision cycle, how the cycle goes on? The main focus would only be the primary research because it will only help us to know the behavior of different class of consumers and if their purchasing decision cycle differs what is the reason(s) behind the same. Data have been collected from archives, questionnaire, in-depth interviews with vendors/Consumers and published reports. This study provides a starting point for a fertile area of research with important implications for buyers and sellers as well as researchers.