A STUDY ON CONSUMERS PREFERENCE TOWARDS ICE CREAM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ERODE CITY

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1 A STUDY ON CONSUMERS PREFERENCE TOWARDS ICE CREAM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ERODE CITY P.JANAKI 1 B.ITHANIKA 2 1 Assistant professor in commerce, Vellalar college for women (Autonomous), Thindal, Erode I -M.com, Vellalar college for women (Autonomous), Thindal, Erode -12. INTRODUCTION Ice cream is a frozen food usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, often combined with fruit or other ingredients and flavours. The ice cream recepies first appeared in 18 th century in England. The ice cream in the 20 th century is one of the great change and increases in availability and popularity. One important development in the 20 th century was the introduction of soft ice cream, which has more air mixed in thereby reducing costs. Though India has low per capita ice cream consumption of 300ml per annum, the trend is slowly changing due to a number of reasons. Indian summers are synonymous with ice cream. Push carts selling the choicest of ice cream in numerous flavours from the traditional vanilla and chocolate to unusual varieties. Indian Ice Cream market can be segmented in three different ways, namely on the basis of flavours, stock keeping units / packaging and consumer segments. The ice cream market today has a number of flavours like vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, mango, butterscotch and a number of fruit flavours, dry fruit flavours, traditional flavours like Kesar-Pista, Kaju-Draksh etc. The market is totally dominated by Vanilla, Strawberry and chocolate, which together account for more than 70% of the market followed by butterscotch and other fruit flavours. Today, more children like to taste the ice creams. Not only the children, all the categories of people like to taste the ice creams. Thus, everyone is fond of tasting ice creams of various flavours. Ice creams are often called The Great American Dessert. It was developed in the United States and also popular in all the countries. In this context, the present study has been undertaken to examine consumers preference towards ice cream. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM All marketing activities are starts with consumer. The consumers are very important person to a marketer. Consumer decides what to purchase for whom to purchase, why to purchase, from where to purchase and how to purchase. In order to become a successful marketer, he must know the likes and dislikes of the consumers. The manufacturer produce and sellers sell whatever the consumer likes. In this sense, consumer is the king in the market. The study of the consumer preference not only focuses on how and why consumers make buying decisions, but also focuses on how and why consumers make choice of the goods they buy and their evaluation of these goods after use. So, for success of any company or product promotion, it is very necessary to depart its concentration towards consumer preference. Hence, the researcher has made an attempt to analyze the consumers preference towards ice cream. The study provides answer for the following questions: 1. What type of ice cream is preferred by the consumer? 2. What are the factors influencing the consumers to choose a particular brand of ice cream and consumers preference towards ice cream? 55 icmrrjournal@gmail.com

2 3. What are the problems faced by the consumers while consuming ice cream? SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study has been undertaken to examine the consumers preference towards ice cream with special reference to Erode city during the period of December 2014 to January The scope of the study is restricted to consumer s preference towards ice cream with the objectives of analyzing the profile of the respondents, the factors influencing the consumers to prefer a particular brand of ice cream, the consumers preference towards ice cream and problems faced by them. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The main objectives of the study are: INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW To identify the factors influencing the consumers to purchase the particular brand of ice cream. To study the consumers preference towards particular brand of ice cream. To understand the various problems faced by the consumers in the consumption of particular brand of ice cream. To recapitulate the findings of the study and offer suitable suggestions to improve the sales of ice cream. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A scientific approach to the research methodology is very much essential to evaluate the research problem systematically. The appropriate method will improve the validity of the findings. It is necessary for the research and the success of analysis mostly depends on methodology in which it is carried out. Area of the study The study on consumers preference towards ice cream has been limited to the consumers located in Erode city. Period of the study The field survey has been carried out during the period from December 2014 to January 2015 to collect primary data. Sampling design The study is based on survey method. The simple random sampling technique is adopted in selecting the respondents for the study. The respondents are distributed with a well structured interview schedule in Erode city. Maximum care has been taken to select the respondents with a view to given due representation people of different walks of life. Sources of data They are, The required data for the study has been collected from two sources. Primary data Secondary data 56 icmrrjournal@gmail.com

3 a) Primary data The primary data is collected with the help of an interview schedule. A total of 50 respondents are interviewed and the collected data is used from for analysis. b) Secondary data The secondary data has been collected from newspaper, magazines and websites to highlight the profile of the ice cream. Analysis of data The interview schedule thus filled up is thoroughly examined to ensure accuracy, consistency and completeness. The collected data are then edited and tabulated for analysis. The data collected from the primary source are analyzed with reference to the objectives by applying appropriate statistical tools. Statistical tools used for data analysis The important statistical tools used in this study are: Simple percentage analysis has been done for the profile of the respondents. Weighted average score ranking technique is used to determine the factors influencing consumers to purchase the particular brand of ice cream. Simple percentage method The ratios are very often expressed as percent. In the calculation of percentage one figure is taken as a base and is represented by 100. The other figures are expressed as ratio of this base. Weighted average score ranking method The weighted average score ranking analysis is the technique used to find the ranking of the factors. The ranks given to each factor will be assigned weights and the total score is computed with the formula, Where, Weighted Average Score Total score Total weights LIMITATIONS The following are the limitations of the study: The data collected for the study are quantitative being subject to personal bias of the respondents. Due to time constraint, the sample size is limited to 50 respondents, the findings may not be applicable to the entire population icmrrjournal@gmail.com

4 The result and the analysis made in this study depends fully on the information given by the respondents. The data given by the respondents are limited to their own perception, opinion, emotion, knowledge, feeling and awareness. FINDINGS In this chapter, the findings of the study are presented as follows: PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS The profile of the respondents has been presented in two parts. The first part shows the socio- economic profile of the respondents and the second part shows the profile of the respondents based on their buying attributes. SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS The respondents have been distributed on the basis of socio economic factors such as their Age, Gender, Marital status, Education qualification, Occupation, Family income, Nature of family, Size of family and Place of residence. PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS BASED ON THEIR BUYING ATTRIBUTES The profile of the respondents are also analyzed on the basis of the buying attributes of the respondents. The brand preference, reason for brand preference, brand awareness, place of purchase, frequency of purchase, flavour of Ice cream, type of ice cream, switch over to other brands and problems faced by the respondents while consuming ice cream are considered as variables in the present study. The following Table 1 shows that the socio economic and buying attributes of the respondents. TABLE 1 Age No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Upto 20 years years years 5 10 Above 40 years 7 14 Gender No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Male Female Marital status No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Married Unmarried icmrrjournal@gmail.com

5 Educational qualification No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Illiterates 1 2 School level Graduates Professional 5 10 Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Student Business 6 12 Employed 6 12 Homemaker Others 4 8 Monthly income No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Upto Rs.10, Rs.10,001-Rs.20, Above Rs.20, Nature of family No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Joint family Nuclear family Size of family No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Below 3 members members Above 5 members 8 16 Place of residence No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Rural Urban Semi-urban Brand name No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Arun Amul Vadilal 5 10 Kwality walls 2 4 Baskin Robbins 3 6 Others icmrrjournal@gmail.com

6 Reason for brand No. of Respondents Percentage (%) preference Price 2 4 Quality Taste Brand name 1 2 Sources of brand No. of Respondents Percentage (%) awareness Friends Relatives Neighbours 2 4 Advertisements Place of purchase No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Ice cream parlour Super market 1 2 Malls 3 6 Restaurants 4 8 Ice cream carts 2 4 Frequency of purchase No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Daily 1 2 Occasionally Once in a week Preference of flavours No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Vanilla Strawberry 6 12 Pista 4 8 Butterscotch Others 4 8 Type of ice cream No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Cup ice cream 8 16 Cone ice cream Ball ice cream 3 6 Stick ice cream 2 4 Others 1 2 Switch over to other brands No. of Respondents Percentage (%) Yes 9 18 No icmrrjournal@gmail.com

7 Problems faced by the No. of Respondents Percentage (%) respondents Yes 9 18 No The socio- economic profile of the respondents reveals that, The majority (40%) of the respondents comes under the age group of upto 20 years. The majority (52%) of the respondents are female The majority (56%) of the respondents are unmarried. The majority (46%) of the respondents are graduates. The majority (48%) of the respondents are students. The majority (26%) of the respondents family income ranges above Rs.20,000. The majority (56%) of the respondents are belongs to nuclear family. The majority (76%) of the respondents belongs to the family size of 3-5 members. The majority (56%) of the respondents are in urban area. The profile of the respondents based on their buying attributes reveals that, The majority (40%) of the respondents prefer Arun ice cream. The majority (58%) of the respondents prefer the brand for taste. The majority (38%) of the respondents get awareness through friends. The majority (84%) of the respondents prefer to buy ice cream in parlour. The majority (56%) of the respondents are purchasing ice cream once in a week. The majority (42%) of the respondents prefer to buy butterscotch flavour. The majority (72%) of the respondents prefer cone ice cream. The majority (82%) of the respondents are not liking to switch over to other brands. The majority (82%) of the respondents are not facing any problems while consuming ice cream. FACTORS INFLUENCING THE CONSUMERS PREFERENCE TOWARDS ICE CREAM A comprehensive interview schedule is given to 50 sample consumers in order to know their buying preference in ice cream. The sample consumers are made to rank the factors influencing them in the purchase of ice cream by including factors such as brand name, price, quality, flavour/variety and advertisements. They are asked to assign the rank 1 to the most influencing factor, rank 2 to the next influencing factor and so on up to 5 to the least influencing factor based on the significance of each factor. The rank 1, 2,3,4,5 are assigned the weights as 5,4,3,2 and 1 respectively. The consumers preference towards ice cream is then analyzed by applying weighted average score ranking technique to know the general order of factors influencing them in their purchase of ice cream. The following Table 2 shows that factors influencing the consumers preference towards icecream icmrrjournal@gmail.com

8 Weighted Score point (w) Rank Factor Brand name TABLE 2 FACTORS INFLUENCING THE CONSUMERS PREFERENCE TOWARDS ICE CREAM Total score ( wx) I II III IV V X WX Price X WX Quality X WX Flavour/ Variety INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW X WX Advertise X ments WX TOTAL Note X-Number of respondents, W-Weighted score point Weighted average score (x) Rank III IV I II V The weighted average score ranking analysis predicts that the Quality, Flavour/Variety and Brand name are the main influencing factors for considering by the sample respondents while choosing the ice cream. SUGGESTIONS The following suggestions are made based on the findings of the present study: Majority of the respondents felt that the prices of ice creams are high. Therefore, it is suggested that the company can reduce the price and concentrate more on its pricing strategy. Majority of the respondents have suggested the company to introduce new types of ice creams with health conscious. The advertisement as a factor secured least rank as compared with other factor. Therefore, it is suggested that the company can come out with frequent attractive advertisements to gain consumers attention. Most of the respondents opined that the availability of ice cream is lesser in Village areas. So, it is suggested that the companies should increase the supply of ice cream in Village areas also. Majority of the respondents prefer ice cream for taste. Hence, it is suggested that the company can still improve the taste to promote goodwill and brand image of the ice cream. Quality and flavours/variety of ice cream are highly influenced factors for the purchase of ice creams by the consumers. So, it is suggested that the company can still concentrate more on its quality and flavours/variety icmrrjournal@gmail.com

9 CONCLUSION As in any other field, the tight competition is in the field of ice cream too. Various popular brands such an Arun, Amul, Kwality walls, Vadilal, Baskin Robbins, etc.., have conquered the supreme position with their extremely good and different flavours. The Taste, Flavours, Price, Quality and Brand name are the factors that make difference between one ice cream and the other. It is a tough task to make a choice among these varied options and also there is competition between different flavours from a single manufacturer itself. The success of a product is in the hands of consumers. There are several factors influencing the consumers in preferring a particular brand of ice cream. The majority of the consumers prefer ice cream for taste. The most of the consumers agreed that the factors like quality, flavours/variety and brand name are the mainly influencing factors while choosing the ice cream. Thus, it can be concluded that the most of the respondents prefer Arun ice cream in Erode city. REFERENCES A. BOOKS Dr. Gupta C.B and Rajan Nair, Marketing Management Sultan Chand & Sons Publications, New Delhi, Kothari C.R, Research Methodology New Delhi, New age international (P) Ltd., Publishers, Second Edition, Gupta S.P, Statistical method, Sultan Chand and Sons Publications, New Delhi, Pillai R.S.N and Bagavathi, Modern Marketing, Publishers S.Chand & Co, New Delhi, Ram Nagar, B. WEBSITES cream industries in india.com scholar.com 63 icmrrjournal@gmail.com