Consumer Behaviour Cosmetic Consumption

Consumer behaviour cosmetic consumption.

It was investigated that quality at 85% and brand name at 10% are the two biggest factors influencing purchase decision-making (Desai, 2104) The price actually does not affect the final decision although consumers are price sensitive, only 3% of consumers really buy based on the price.

Regarding, marketing communications, Indian cosmetics consumers’ decision to purchase is highly influenced by the following media in order of higher to lower impact on audiences: advertisement, doctor/beautician, and friends. (Desai, 2104) “Out of 39% preferences for Hindustan Unilever products, 29% of the respondents are influenced by advertising when making purchase.15% out of 20% of users of the Garnier brand are influenced by advertising in their purchase. Nivea has 11% out of 17% of users, being influenced by advertising. In all, 70% of the responses have advertising influencing their purchase of cosmetic products.” (Ampofo, 2014:9) These results show the level of importance of advertising in cosmetics industry in India. Perhaps, buying decision of consumers is even more impacted by advertisement when done with celebrities. (Ampofo, 2014) Regarding the advertising channels, Desai (2014) adds that in 36% of the cases, advertisement done via television has a bigger impact as compared to newspaper 24%, internet 17%, and magazines 15%; radio has scored only 01%.

34% of cosmetics consumers in India always compare brands before purchase while 49% compare brands sometimes. (Desai, 2014) In order to do this they collect information mainly from commercial media, friends, and magazines/newspapers.

The final decision making for purchase of cosmetics is done independently by the buyer in 54% of the cases but at times the decision in influenced by the opinions of friends 13%, and wife 14%. Men rarely decide to buy their cosmetics by themselves. (Desai, 2014) More specifically, in the decision-making of buying, the Pearson correlation between the influencer (myself) facial foams, fairness cream, and Day & night is very high: 22.5, 20.2, and 30.8 respectively. (Junaid, Nasreen, and Ahmed, 2013)

Having synthesized the patterns of consumer buying behavior of cosmetic products in India let us now investigate the consumers’ preferences for cosmetic products in the Indian context.