Factors Affecting Consumer Behaviour and Acquisition of Household Equipment in Imo State
Factors Affecting Consumer Behaviour and Acquisition of Household Equipment in Imo State.
ABSTRACT
The objective of this study is to find out the factors affecting consumer behaviour and the acquisition of household equipment in Imo state. This piece of work is of a great interest to the researcher because the researcher is a consumer of household equipment an indigene of Imo state.
The study will serve as a guide to consumers of household equipment, helping them to work with their budget plan. In order to achieve the objectives of this study expost factor research design was used.
The population for this study consisted of working-class men and women in the 27 local government areas in Imo state with a population of fourteen thousand, five hundred and forty-four (14,544) civil servant.
The instrument used in this study was a self- developed questionnaire, which contained. (4) Four sections with 30 items on factors affecting consumer behaviour and acquisition of household equipment in Imo state.
The questionnaire was administered on a total of four hundred and fourteen (414) respondents which was sample from eight local government in the State.
The researcher was able to collect Four Hundred and Six (406) questionnaires loosing 8 questionnaires after the administration. The data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were computed.
INTRODUCTION
Consumption makes little meaning without consumers, who are users of goods and services or final takers of specified goods, even when the goods are to be converted or combined with some kind of service and resold. Consumer groups believe consumers have several basic rights that they are entitled to.
The rights include products whose quality is consistent with their prices and the claims of manufacturers’ protection against unsafe goods, adequate and accurate information about goods or services and of course a choice among a variety of products.
On the other hand, consumers as buyers have some responsibilities such as making sure that a product is used for the purpose intended by the manufacturer, and following the instructions provided with the product. Consumer behaviours involves the study of when, how, what and where people do or do not buy products.
As a discipline of study, it attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people’s want.
It also tries to assess influences on the consumers from groups such as family, friends, reference groups and society in general. Consumer behaviour study is based on buying with the customer playing the three distinct roles of user, payer and buyer.
Duplessis and Rousseau (1999) state, that consumer behaviour is influenced by such internal influences as demographics, psychographics (lifestyles), personality, motivation, knowledge, attitude, beliefs and feelings.
External influences include culture, sub-culture, locality, ethnicity, family, social class, reference groups, and market mix factors.
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CSN Team.
