With the increase in per capita income and wide range of choices being available, consumers are main focus for many detergent producing organizations. With competition at its all time peak and with changing trends in demand the companies are finding it hard to survive or to retain their market share.
In order to lure the consumers, companies study the quantity being purchased by consumers and at what price.We here try to find out how these factors, confining ourselves to detergent market of India, and many other factors effect the demand of consumers for detergents. Executive Summary This is based on our research work on Detergents, being FMCG, it made us go to households and interact to find out the consumer’s buying behavior. Our objectives were to find out what are the main features consumers look in detergents while buying, brand loyalty towards a particular brand, major reasons of switching from one brand to the other.
To gather the data we used the questionnaires method. This data was fed in a data analysis tool SPSS. With the help of which we analysed and interpreted the data gathered, pertaining the buying behavior of consumers. Along with questionnaires, we also used Internet to find out about the detergent industry and the various brands available.
There are more than 10 brands available in the Indian market, but we have chosen 6 major brands. The Indian laundry market is Rs 5000 crore, with HUL enjoying highest 38% of share, followed by others like P&G, Nirma, Ghari etc.Detergent bar comprises of 43% of market share and powder enjoying the rest 57%. The brands which we tapped are Nirma, Ariel, Surf, Tide, Wheel, Surf Excel and leaving others as option.
Competition in this market is really high with HUL, P&G, Nirma etc strategizing and innovating to capture the market. The research design used in our research was descriptive incorporating knowledge from secondary information analysis, qualitative research, methodology selection, question measurement & scale selection, questionnaire design and sample design to be used.And simple random sampling was done. Target customers were mainly housewives, bachelors and others who are using detergents.
Introduction to Project Detergent Detergent is a material intended to assist cleaning.The term is sometimes used to differentiate between soap and other surfactants used for cleaning. As an adjective pertaining to a substance, it (or “detersive”) means “cleaning” or “having cleaning properties”; “detergency” indicates presence or degree of cleaning property. The term detergent by itself is sometimes used to refer specifically to clothing detergent, as opposed to hand soap or other types of cleaning agents.
Plain water, if used for cleaning, is a detergent.Probably the most widely used detergents other than water are soaps or mixtures composed chiefly of soaps. However, not all soaps have significant detergency and, although the words “detergent” and “soap” are sometimes used interchangeably, not every detergent is a soap. The term detergent is sometimes used to refer to any surfactant, even when it is not used for cleaning.
Ingredients that modify the foaming properties of the cleaning surfactants, to either stabilize or counteract foam Ingredients to increase or decrease the viscosity of the solution, or to keep other ingredients in solution, in a detergent supplied as a water solution or gel Ingredients that affect aesthetic properties of the item to be cleaned, or of the detergent itself before or during use, such as optical brighteners, fabric softeners, colors, perfumes, etc.
Ingredients such as corrosion inhibitors to counteract damage to equipment with which the detergent is used Ingredients to reduce harm or produce benefits to skin, when the detergent is used by bare hand on inanimate objects or used to clean skin Preservatives to prevent spoilage of other ingredients Sometimes materials more complicated than mere mixtures of compounds are said to be detergent.For instance, certain foods such as celery are said to be detergent or detersive to teeth.
There are several factors that dictate what compositions of detergent should be used, including the material to be cleaned, the apparatus to be used, and tolerance for and type of dirt. For instance, all of the following are used to clean glass. Other detergent surfactants came from saponin sand ox bile. The detergent effects of certain synthetic surfactants were noted in 1913 by A. Reychler, a Belgian chemist. The first commercially available detergent taking advantage of those observations was Nekal, sold in Germany in 1917, to alleviate World War I soap shortages.
Detergents were mainly used in industry until World War II.By then new developments and the later conversion of USA aviation fuel plants to produce tetrapropylene, used in household detergents, caused a fast growth of household use, in the late 1940s. In the late 1960s biological detergents, containing enzymes, better suited to dissolve protein stains, such as egg stains, were introduced in the USA by Procter & Gamble. Indian detergent market The first companies to manufacture detergents in India were HLL and Swastik.
HLL test marketed Surf between 1956 and 1958 and began manufacturing it from 1959. Swastik launched Det, a white detergent powder, in 1957. By 1960, Det had made rapid inroads in eastern India.Surf, a blue detergent powder, became the national market leader with dominant positions in the west, north and south.
In the early 1960s, the total volume of detergents manufactured in India grew from around 1600 tonnes to 8000 tonnes. HLL dominated the market with a share of almost 70 % compared to Det’s 25%. In 1966, another player entered the fray. Tata Oil Mills Company (TOMCO) 2 launched its detergent powder ‘Magic’.
Detergent bars comprise 43 per cent of the total market and detergent powders comprise the balance 57 per cent. However, the detergent bar market is shrinking in India Detergent Brands NIRMA Various Products offered by Nirma are: Nirma Washing Powder This product created a marketing miracle, when introduced in the domestic marketplace. In 1969, when the detergents were priced so exorbitantly that for most of the Indians, it was a luxury item.
Nirma envisioned the vast Fabric Wash market segment and sensed a tremendous potential therein. This product was priced at almost one third to that of the competitor brands, resulting into instant trial by the consumers.Owing to its unique environment-friendly, phosphate-free formulation, the consumers became loyal to this brand, helping it to over-take the decades’ old brands, in terms of volumes. This brand had been ranked as the “Most widely distributed detergent powder brand in India” as per All India Census of Retail Outlets carried out in 435 urban towns by the AIMS (Asian Information Marketing & Social) Research agency [Brand Equity – The Economic Times, March 11, 1997].
As per the ORG-MARG Rural Consumer Panel [December 1998] survey, Nirma brand has been ranked as highest in terms of penetration in washing powder category [BT Rural Market Watch, Business Today, June 22, 1999].Super Nirma Washing Powder Exploding the myth that ‘better quality always demands higher price”, Nirma introduced a spraydried blue coloured washing powder in the premium segment, in 1996. Available in 25g, 500g and 1000g packs, this product out-classed its competitor brands. Though, priced almost 40 % lesser, thus providing a very attractive ‘value-for-money’ proposition.
This brand, within a short span of two years, had cornered substantial market share in the premium detergent segment and continues to perform well. Nirma Popular Detergent Powder To cater to the needs of the specific target audience, Nirma launched a good quality product at a very affordable price.The objective is to convert the non-users of detergents into users and also prevent the competitors and local manufacturers to lure away the prospective Nirma consumers by sub-standard products. This product has created a loyal consumer base of its own and has established substantial amount of volumes.
It is available in pack sizes of 500g and 1000g pack sizes. Nirma Detergent Cake Deriving inspiration from its success in the Detergent Powder market, Nirma expanded its product portfolio by introducing the “Nirma detergent cake” in 1987. Here again, the excellent pricequality equation tempted the consumers to try the product. Available in 125g and 250g pack sizes, this brand has done exceptionally well.
AIMS survey ranked Nirma detergent cake as “The Most widely distributed detergent cake brand”.Due to its unique formulation, this product offers benefits like less melting in water, better stability, and therefore lasts longer. As per the ORGMARG Rural Consumer Panel[December 1998] survey, Nirma brand is ranked highest in terms of penetration in washing cakes / bars category [BT Rural Market Watch, Business Today, June 22, 1999]. Super Nirma Detergent Cake To meet the growing aspirations of consumers and to offer them value-chain product portfolio, Nirma introduced Super Nirma Detergent Cake, in 1992.
Available in 125g and 250g pack sizes, this product, within a short span, convinced the consumers of competitor brands to switch their loyalty towards Super Nirma detergent cake.With a high detergency value, this product offers quality wash to their consumers. Super Nirma Detergent Cake was ranked as the fastest Climber for the year 1997-98 in the detergent cake/ bars category. Nirma Popular Detergent Cake The positioning of Nirma Popular Detergent Cake is similar to that of Nirma Popular Detergent Powder.
This product is available in 125g and 250g pack sizes, targeted to first-time detergent cake user segment. WHEEL Wheel – your smart laundry choice The largest laundry brand in Bangladesh, Wheel has always been focused in making laundry a pleasurable and delightful experience for the housewives.Based on its years of understanding of its consumers and huge experience in laundry, Wheel has been continually improving its formulation and form to suit the modern day users. Different formats and pack sizes of Wheel has been designed to cater to the requirements of users with different family sizes, laundry requirements and income groups.
Wheel Laundry Soap Wheel Laundry Soap has a perfect formulation that not only gives great clean, but also is gentle to both hand and cloth. The soap comes in individual shrink wrap designed to ensure that the consumers receive a fresh soap with great lemon fragrance. The improved formulation of Wheel Laundry Soap also helps the users to wash more number of clothes than the traditional ball soap.Wheel Washing Powder A dominant market leader in the detergent segment, Wheel Washing Powder is known for its great cleaning ability with minimum effort.
The superior formulation of Wheel Washing Powder is enhanced with the power of lemon, which not only removes the tough dirt in your cloth, but also leaves a pleasant lemon fresh fragrance well after washing. The convenience provided by Wheel Washing Powder has relieved many housewives from the laborious laundry process of the tradional Ball Soaps. ARIEL Ariel is a marketing line of laundry detergents made by Procter & Gamble. It is the flagship brand in Procter & Gamble’s European,Mexican, Japanese, Brazilian, Peruvian, Turkish, Filipino, and Venezuelan portfolios.
Ariel first appeared on the UK market circa 1968 and was the first detergent with stain-removing enzymes. It was a high-sudsing powder designed for twin-tub and top-loading washing machines. With the rise in popularity of automatic front-loading washing machines, a suitable low-suds variant was launched in the early 1970s. The mid-eighties saw the range expanding to encompass liquid detergent and compact powder.
The compact powder was originally known as “Ariel Ultra”; and was subsequently reformulated into the nineties as “Ariel Futur”. This was possibly in response to Unilever’s launch of the ultimately doomed “Persil Power”, which was seen to damage clothes.Compact powders never proved popular in the UK; so when the tablet variant appeared in July 1999, the compact version disappeared. In 2003, Ariel brought out its quickwash action to its detergents, to allow consumers to be able to do their laundry on a quickwash cycle.
In 2006, Ariel started its “turn to 30” campaign to inspire consumers to wash in cool water so that energy can be saved. Ariel launched a concentrated version of their liquid detergents named Ariel Power in the spring of 2008. In October 2008, Ariel launched their new Excel Gel product which can be used in temperatures as low as 15 degrees celsius. This product was launched under Ariel’s “cold is the new hot” campaign.
The latest move comes in the wake of the high profile launch of Tide detergent bar. Tide and Ariel always created problems for Surf and Rin. The migration of Rin Supreme bar to Surf Excel bar is aimed at countering Tide. HLL has announced a drastic reduction in price by Rs 20 per kilo on Surf Excel, its premium detergent brand, making it cheaper than competing brand Ariel from Procter & Gamble (P&G).
rice cut, from Rs 155 to Rs 135 per kg. Research Objective Objectives The following project has been given to us in order to make us understand the real environment of the market in which research is conducted. Marketing research, being a very important field of study in management can only be learned through practically working in the markets. The subject of our study being an FMCG product made us go and interact with the households and know their buying behaviour, preferences and expectations from the detergents they use.
In our study we defined our research objectives as follows:
- To find the customer preference in the forms of detergents
- To ind the customer frequency of use of detergents/ number of times they purchase a product in a month
- To find the various ways by which the customers wash their clothes/ dishes
- To find the brand loyalty of the customers
- To find the qualities they look for while buying a detergent
- To study the reasons that made the customer switch from their previous brands
- To find the mode of communication through which they came to know about the qualities/ features of their present brand
- To find the number of times the customer switches from one brand to another
- To find the role of packaging in the purchase behavior of a product- quantity.
Consumers’ awareness about the harmful effects of the detergents. The objectives hence set paved the way for the exhaustive research that we conducted in the field to elaborate and analyse separately in order to get a complete and a dynamic overview.
Market Research Market Research Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy. The term is commonly interchanged with marketing research; however, expert practitioners may wish to draw a distinction, in that marketing esearch is concerned specifically about marketing processes, while market research is concerned specifically with markets. Market research as defined by the International Code on Market and Social Research, includes social and opinion research is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organizations using statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences to gain insight or support decision making.
Quantitative marketing research Quantitative marketing research is the application of quantitative research techniques to the field of marketing. It has roots in both the positivist view of the world, and the modern marketing viewpoint that marketing is an nteractive process in which both the buyer and seller reach a satisfying agreement on the “four Ps” of marketing: Product, Price, Place (location) and Promotion. As a social research method, it typically involves the construction of questionnaires and scales. People who respond (respondents) are asked to complete the survey.
Marketers use the information so obtained to understand the needs of individuals in the marketplace, and to create strategies and marketing plans. Qualitative Market Research Qualitative marketing research is a set of research techniques, used in marketing and the social sciences, in which data is obtained from a relatively small group of respondents and not analyzed with inferential statistics. This differentiates it from quantitative analyzed for statistical significance.Qualitative research tools are used primarily to define a problem and generate hypotheses.
They are often used as the prelude to quantitative research in order to identify determinants, and develop quantitative research designs. They can be better than quantitative research at probing below the surface in order to understand what drives and motivates behaviour. Because of the low number of respondents involved and the idiosyncratic nature of some data collection methods findings from qualitative marketing research should be applied to larger populations with caution. They are however, very valuable for exploring an issue and are used by almost all researchers at various points during large research campaigns.
In short, most businesses use one or more of six basic methods to perform market research: literature, surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation and field trials. The type of data you need and how much money you’re willing to spend will determine which techniques you choose for your business 1. Literature search involves reviewing all readily available materials. These materials can include internal company information, relevant trade publications, newspapers, magazines, annual reports, company literature, on-line databases, and any other published materials.
It is a very inexpensive method of gathering information, although it generally does not yield timely information. Literature searches take between one and eight weeks.
Using concise, straightforward questionnaires, you can analyze a sample group that represents your target market. The larger the sample, the more reliable the results In-person surveys are one-on-one interviews typically conducted in high-traffic locations such as shopping malls. They allow you to present people with samples of products, packaging or advertising and gather immediate feedback. In-person surveys can generate response rates of more than 90 percent, but they are costly.
With the time and labor involved, the tab for an in-person survey can run as high as $100 per interview. Telephone surveys are less expensive than in-person surveys, but costlier than mail.However, due to consumer resistance to relentless telemarketing, getting people to participate in phone surveys has grown increasingly difficult. Telephone surveys generally yield response rates of 50 percent to 60 percent.
Mail surveys are a relatively inexpensive way to reach a broad audience. They’re much cheaper than in-person and phone surveys, but they only generate response rates of 3 percent to 15 percent. Despite the low return, mail surveys are still a cost-effective choice for small businesses. Online surveys usually generate unpredictable response rates and unreliable data because you have no control over the pool of respondents.
But an online survey is a simple, inexpensive way to collect anecdotal evidence and gather customer opinions and preferences. Focus groups.In focus groups, a moderator uses a scripted series of questions or topics to lead a discussion among a group of people. These sessions take place at neutral locations, usually at facilities with videotaping equipment and an observation room with one-way mirrors. A focus group usually lasts for one to two hours, and it takes at least three groups to get balanced results.
Like focus groups, personal interviews include unstructured, open-ended questions. They usually last for about an hour and are typically recorded. Focus groups and personal interviews provide more subjective data than surveys do. The results are not statistically reliable, which means they usually don’t represent a large segment of the population.
Nevertheless, focus groups and interviews yield valuable insights into customer attitudes and are excellent ways to uncover issues related to new products or service development. Individual responses to surveys and focus groups are sometimes at odds with people’s actual behavior.
When you observe consumers in action by videotaping them in stores, at work or at home, you can observe how they buy or use a product. This gives you a more accurate picture of customers’ usage habits and shopping patterns. Placing a new product in selected stores to test customer response under real-life selling conditions can help you make product modifications, adjust prices or improve packaging.Small business owners should try to establish rapport with local storeowners and Web sites that can help them test their products.
A questionnaire is research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case. The questionnaire was invented by Sir Francis Galton. Questionnaires have advantages over some other types of surveys in that they are cheap, do not require as much effort from the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardized answers that make it simple to compile data.
However, such standardized answers may frustrate users.Questionnaires are also sharply limited by the fact that respondents must be able to read the questions and respond to them. Thus, for some demographic groups conducting a survey by questionnaire may not be practical. Question types Usually, a questionnaire consists of a number of questions that the respondent has to answer in a set format.
A distinction is made between open-ended and closed-ended questions. An open-ended question asks the respondent to formulate his own answer, whereas a closed-ended question has the respondent pick an answer from a given number of options. The response options for a closedended question should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive.
Four types of response scales for closed-ended questions are distinguished:
- Dichotomous, where the respondent has two options
- Nominal-polytomous, where the respondent has more than two unordered options
- Ordinal-polytomous, where the respondent has more than two ordered options
- Continuous, where the respondent is presented with a continuous scale
- A respondent’s answer to an open-ended question is coded into a response scale afterwards.
An example of an open-ended question is a question where the testee has to complete a sentence (sentence completion item) Question sequence In general, questions should flow logically from one to the next. To achieve the best response rates, questions should flow from the least sensitive to the most sensitive, from the factual and behavioural to the attitudinal, and from the more general to the more specific. Before designing the questionnaire, many decisions have to be made. These decisions affect the questionnaire, and should be part of the draft plan for a survey.
The draft plan should address the following issues: Survey objectives and data requirements In order to address the survey’s objectives, you should prepare a document that provides a clear and comprehensive statement of the survey’s goals, data requirements, and the analysis plan. This document will determine the variables to be measured, and ultimately, the survey questions and response alternatives. When formulating the questions, consult with subject-matter experts and if possible, members of the target audience. Also, examine questions from other surveys on the same or similar topics.
This research will provide you with a useful starting point and will help you create appropriate and informative questions.Make certain that the questions are relevant to the survey objectives and information requirements and ensure that there is an established rationale behind each question. Also, you should explain how the information gathered from these questions will be used and whether they will be good measures of the required data.
Analysis plan. The next step in designing a questionnaire is to create an analysis plan. First, outline the questionnaire’s objectives and data requirements. Describe the target audience as clearly as possible. Then, identify the reference period (the time period under construction—in the last year, in the last month etc. ). Develop a list of the units to be sampled (e. g. , students, houses, teachers, etc. ). Decide on the method of data collection to be used (e. g. face-to-face interview, telephone interview, mailed questionnaire, etc. ).
Explain how the questionnaire content, wording, format and pre-testing process will be developed; as well as the procedures put in place to deal with the interviewer training and non-response results. Also, choose the methods to be used during the data processing (e. g. , coding, editing etc.).
Some of the other issues that can be analysed during this step include estimation methods, result output tabulations, result reports and the analysis. Finally, the last two important issues to be considered are the time required to complete the entire process and the budget that has been allotted to it. Survey target population Often the target population (the population for which information is required) and the survey population (the population actually covered) differ for practical reasons, even though they should, in actuality, be the same.
Sometimes, it is necessary to impose geographical limitations excluding certain parts of the target population because they are inaccessible due to difficulty or cost. It is also possible that some of the survey concepts and methods that are used can be considered inappropriate for certain parts of the population. For example, consider a survey of post-secondary graduates where the objective is to determine if the graduates found jobs and, if so, what types of jobs.In this case, you might exclude graduates who specialized in religious seminaries or military schools, as these types of graduates would be reasonably assured of securing employment in their respective fields.
Thus, the target population might contain only those graduates who graduated from universities, colleges and trade schools. • Method of data collection This next step in questionnaire design involves developing the methods of data collection. This is important step because you need to consider the costs, physical resources, and time required to conduct the survey. First, select the best method for gathering the required data.
Keep in mind that cost and data quality will be directly impacted by the method you choose.There are several options available: face-to-face interviews or computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) are two examples. These methods are administered by a trained interviewer and can have either a structured or unstructured line of questioning. There are also two telephone methods available: telephone interviews or computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).
Both of these methods are also administered by a trained interviewer, but the telephone versions are structured with a more formal interview schedule. Finally, there is also the option of a collecting data through a selfcompleted questionnaire. This method allows the respondent to complete the questionnaire without the aid of an interviewer.It is highly structured and can be returned by mail or through a drop-off system.
