THE EFFECTS OF ELECTRONIC MARKETING ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR IN ABUJA FCT

THE EFFECTS OF ELECTRONIC MARKETING ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR IN ABUJA FCT         

(A case study of Airtel Nigeria Plc., Abuja)

ABSTRACT

The increase of technologies in the business world marketer’s job changes from billboard and print advertisement to more on e-marketing mediums. The design, the target audience specified with the high increase of online marketing, online buying and selling, and online companies web-design. Today’s companies focused on designing the web-page for marketing their product rather than showing advertisements on TV, billboard, magazines, newspapers etc. e-marketing is the future of marketing, it is quick, less costly and give accurate information on time. This research shows that almost 80-90% people are attracted with the online advertisement which is done mostly on social websites, as social webs users are not specific to gender and age group so everyone see their type of advertisement on their Facebook pages. Today’s customers are buying products mostly after watching online advertisement rather than by reading a newspapers, magazines or watching T.V. As today’s customers are not brand loyal anymore so with the help of online marketing company give updates of their products or services to maintain loyalty with their customers. For staying into the nowadays business world, companies should adopt e-marketing, e-buying and e-selling, online banking facilities to purchase online goods, ATM cards, mobile marketing and other these kinds of marketing tool. E-marketing is the golden success factor for nowadays marketing firms. A good source of capturing the overall world marketing through online marketing is by imposing advertisement on YouTube, Facebook, E-mail, E-webs for both business advertisement and consumer buying products and services advertisements. For the greater success of any business companies are quickly adopting e-marketing style of advertisement because they see more spark in e-marketing rather than advertised on other commercial tools. Because of e-marketing, e-buying and selling increase, and because of e-buying and selling ATM cards and e-buying, e-shopping and e-marketing reach to the best stage of their success.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.0     BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Today’s consumers have never had so much choice and control; they are hyper-connected, hyper-mobile and hold the power when it comes to how, when and where they choose to consume content, products and services. Consumers now research, review and consume anywhere and everywhere – at lightning speed. Businesses all over the world are now looking to new technologies to meet their unique business requirements and position themselves to take advantage of global changes in business activities. Businesses both large and small need information to succeed in today’s rapid changing environment, they need to be able to process data and use information effectively when conducting their day-to-day operations.

The growth of the internet has greatly influenced consumer buying behaviour in most part of the world. Kim (2004) opines that the internet is a dynamic system that provides opportunities for enterprises to build and apply marketing strategies, thus enterprises must be inform, learn and interact with what its consumer w ants and one of the ways of achieving this is via the electronic marketing. The e-marketing has drastically changed the consumer behavior and marketing method. As e-marketing increasing drastically we have different kinds of e-marketing webs available online like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Linked in, Blogger, Twitter, YouTube, MSN, Myspace, AOL, e-bay etc. Konga, Jumia, Ali BaBa, Amazon.

Electronic marketing or E-marketing can be defined as any marketing activity like buying, selling, advertisement, promotion, distribution, customers value and all other kind of marketing activities done with the help of using online technology to transfer goods from seller to buyer online (Strauss and Frost, 2001). Consumer buying behavior is the mental, emotional, physical activities which people perform when choosing, purchasing, using and spending products and services with aim of fulfilling their needs and desires (Marcel, 2008). This implies that consumer buying behaviour is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products. e-marketing is not just helpful for the marketers but consumers as well; through e-marketing consumer research detail about product or services after watch advertisement which has been done online at the same time, that’s why it is consider less time consuming market, and more variety of people available, their comparison between different companies become easy because you can see different marketing webs at a same time regarding same products. Options are widely open (Ndisika, 2015).

Through scientific research it is also be found that nowadays people are relaying on e-marketing mostly (Ali, 2015 and Chen, 2011). Living in this century, everyone is running to achieve their target and goal, nobody have time to survey the market physically, so with the help of e-marketing, time and cost both maintain equally (Ali, 2015). The reason behind online shopping increment is that most consumers is highly depending on technologies, they do not survey physically in the market, they don’t read newspaper any more, the trend of watching TV advertisement is declining, because they prefer internet mostly to search for news, movies, dramas, etc rather than the TV, Radio, Novels, and other stuffs, so that’s the reason companies preferring online marketing of their product or services advertisement (Chen, 2011).

As e-marketing has no time limit, 24/7 availability, safety of your money as well, increases the use of ATM cards and other online shopping cards attract customers effectively and efficiently; prospective consumers can easily search the product information online, no sales tax for company as everything done online. Regardless of the type of e-marketing a company chooses to market their goods, they are making themselves more visible and accessible by putting themselves out there, the best part is that no matter where they are located, prospective consumers can access their products and transact business whenever they choose to.

It is against this background that this study this examines the effect of electronic marketing on consumers buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.

1.1     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

Electronic marketing has changed and is still changing the way business is conducted around the world. The commercialization of the Internet has driven online marketing to become one of the most promising channels for inter-organizational business processes. Electronic marketing evolved in various means of relationship within the business processes.

In Nigeria today, many consumers are turning to the internet in the marketing and purchasing of goods and even services. However, many more consumers are not reaping the reward of e-marketing for many reasons; there is the problem of cybercrime, availability of internet coverage, epileptic power supply, lack of awareness. The major problem statement therefore is: why do consumers make purchase online and what factor influence consumer purchases online

Therefore the above mention problems motivated the researchers to carry a research work on the effect of electronic marketing on consumers buying behaviour inin Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja..

1.2     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study is to examine the effect e-marketing on consumer buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.

The study sought to achieve the following specific objectives:

1. Find out the effect of social media on consumer buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.
2. Examine the effect of website on consumer buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.
3. Ascertain the effect of online blog on consumers buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.

1.3     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions guided the study

1. What is the effect of social media on consumer buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja?
2. What is the effect of website on consumer buying behaviour in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja?
3. What is the effect of online blog on consumer buying behaviour for Airtel  users in Abuja FCT?

1.4     STATEMENT OF THE HYPOTHESIS

H₀:    Electronic marketing has no significant effect on consumer buying behaviour in in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.

H₁:    Electronic marketing has effect on consumer buying behaviour in in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of this study will be beneficial to organizations as well as firms especially on the need to focus generally on online/internet marketing, individual, group/team and organizational creativity. Also, the findings of this study will serve as a medium of awareness and enlightenment on the many environmental trends affecting organizations in recent years and proffer possible panacea to such problems as they rear heads. Not only this, but also, its findings will serve as platform mostly for professional manager, chief executives and all personnel involved in the staff training, administration and management on how to drive their staff for maximum human creativity and innovation. By so doing, several organizations would be better equipped to develop a repertoire of techniques (management control systems) to improving performances of average employees and at the same time improving the efficiency in management by enforcing cooperation of workers and standardization of work methods especially in creative organizations.

In conclusion, the outcome of this study will provide a contribution to the management of national culture as regards cultural individualism, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, multiple cultural dimensions as may affect an individual employee’s preferences for, and reaction to management control systems in interactive ways; and it will be a systematic knowledge base for researchers. 

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study will be limited to in Airtel Nigeria Plc. Abuja.

The study adopts the dimensions of electronic marketing (Social media, websites, and online blogs). Primary data will be the source of data used in the study. The responses obtained via the primary source (questionnaire) will be analyzed in simple percentage and presented in tables. Chi-square will be used in testing the hypotheses generated for the study; the decision rule adopted for the study is that the null hypothesis will be accepted or rejected based on the critical value and tabulated value- if the calculated value is greater than the tabulated value, the researcher will reject the null hypothesis (at a specified level of significance and a determined degree of freedom) otherwise it will be accepted.

1.7     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The researcher encountered some limitations in the course of carrying out the study; these include;

1. Time: The researcher had time constraints in course of the work, because the research was undertaken at the same time as when the course work was going on.
2. Finance: The high cost of transportation encountered and also the high cost of acquiring research material and also in preparation of the report.

1.8     OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

E-marketing: This is the marketing and selling of goods and services using the internet as the sales and distribution medium.

Consumer buying behaviour: This is the sum total of a consumer’s attitudes, preferences, intentions, and decisions regarding the consumer’s behavior in the marketplace when purchasing a product or service.

Social media: Social media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.

Websites: A website is a collection of related web pages, including multimedia content, typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server. 

Blog:A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries.

A STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF PACKAGING ON CONSUMER BUYING HABITS

A STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF PACKAGING ON CONSUMER BUYING HABITS

(A case study of Paterson Zouchonis (PZ) Cussons Nigeria Plc. Abuja)

ABSTRACT

This research work sought to identify the reaction of consumers towards a well-designed packaged product. The researcher highlighted the facts associated with the objectives of this study. The introductory part discussed the statement of problems that affects designing packages, the effect of new changes in the package design and also to know the impact of technology in packaging. The research instrument used for data collection was mainly questionnaires, personal interviews and personal observations. The needed data were collected from staff and customers of Paterson Zouchonis (PZ) Cussons Nigeria Plc, Abuja. Also talk about the data presentation and how it was analyzed, the method of testing the hypothesis and the finding of the research that package should be designed in such a way to motivate and convey the intended message about the product which can be a promotional tool in enticing consumers to purchase product and also enhance decision making of an organization.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.0     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The world as it is now is full of changes and we are living in an era of rapid changes, they are changed in all works of life, the well-being of the population has changed drastically, our beliefs, values, culture, technology have also undergone some form of changes as well. There are more indications to show that these changes will continue to take place in future and even in a faster rate.

The behavior of the consumer also changes in line with the modern change of the world and as such there is need for producer to drastically change in line with consumer taste and fashion in other not to be pushed out of the market and to meet with consumer demands at all levels.

In other for manufacturers and marketers to meet the demand of the consumers and also compete favorable with competitors, they have to take into consideration the controllable variables, which are the marketing mix that are within the control of the market and the marketing mix modification is quite appreciable, nevertheless, more attention should also be laid on packaging which is quite part of the consumer   product and also the first to appeal to the eyes of the consumers before the real product.

Packaging is extra marketing activities that demand variable consideration and allocation of funds as well as long time innovation/ideas. Packaging handles the designing of packs of a product which in recent times is considered as market techniques and packaging of a product have the ability to capture the eye and mind of consumers at sight before even the product in question.

Packaging is a dynamic, complex and controversial business area. The dynamism of packaging is opting to produce corresponding change in production and marketing system. Packaging can be thought of producing three basic functions: as protection, containment and also a competitive tool against competitors, as a result the behavior of consumers towards attractive packs should be checked and corrections made immediately. Packaging was not always thought of in this way; it was only recently that it has been used as extended marketing tool of an organization.

Packaging and expenditures remain valid for a long time providing the pack receives a wide acceptance by being so attractive to the consumers, unlike advertising which is constantly paid for in any chance booked. Packaging is a silent salesman of any company’s goods. The complexity of modern marketing with emphasis on self- service place a tremendous responsibility on packaging and it is achieving the target result to the companies that understand its fall potentials and problems and equally use it properly.

If precisely the role of packaging in marketing is understood by the management, then there will be effective decision of funds allocated to packaging with just little advertisement to introduce the product to the market and allowing the packaging of the product to sell the product. To some organization, since the packaging of the product influences consumer behavior, there should be continuous change of pack to suit the consumer’s requirement and also packs should be made to look more attractive to consumers at all time.

PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc. engaged in the manufacturing and marketing of wide range of product such as detergents, soaps, pharmaceuticals, toiletries, cosmetics, medicament, hair care, baby care, skin care, perfumes, confectionaries, electrical goods and nutritional product, with its headquarters located at town planning way Illupeju, Ikeja Lagos and their manufacturing unit in Illupeju, Ikorodu and Aba.  The company sells its products under the following brands:

Detergents: Elephant, Jet, Morning Fresh Temp, Zip

Soap: Duck, Canoe, Premier Antiseptic, Drum, Imperial leather,                         Camel and Joy Soap.

Hair Care: Venus Hair Food Dress, Venus Hair Styling, Venus Hair

Shampoo and Conditioner, Venus Hair Treatment, Venus Hairnolye Relaxer, Venus Hairlye Fortify

Baby Care: Nigeria Baby Care, Cussons Baby Range, Cussons Powder and Pears Baby Oil.

Confectionaries:  Minta, Superminta, Cough Sweets, Flourish, Mint Fresh.

Skin Care:  Venus, Venus Lotion, Stella Pomade, Joy, and Carex.

Perfumes:  Joy Colognes, Dan Duala, Venus Perfume Gold.

Pharmaceuticals:  Super Atlas, Maladrin, Zubes.

The major concern of this project work will be on premier antiseptic, which is a new product that was introduced into the market to compete with other antiseptic soaps in the market. The packaging was the first to sell before the product because the pack was very attractive to the eyes. 

1.1    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is believed that an effective product package entails the acceptability by customers and constitutes one of the determinants of consumers buying habits. However, a large share of the company’s sales has dropped as a result of consumer’s low patronage and poor product packaging which made the product unattractive to consumers.

A primary complain by consumers is that certain product are not well packed (citing Zip 10kg detergent bags to be none water resistant). They complain that the company’s system for handling materials during supply also reduce value of certain products packaging as well as some product possessing unattractive treatment compared to competitors brands. Thus there is need to examine this situation critically in providing an improved product that will appeal to its large customers.

1.2     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is:

1. To critically access or examine the effectiveness of packaging on consumers buying habit.
2. To determine whether the company‘s image is being projected through its packaging policy.
3. To find out the impact of change in the package of a product.

1.3     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How can the company access or examine the effectiveness of packaging on consumers buying habit?
2. How can the company’s image be projected through its packaging policy?
3. What is the impact of change in the package of a product?

1.4     STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

A hypothesis is a statement of fact that has been empirically tested. It is also a tentative statement that must be tested if tested will lead to either acceptance or rejection of the null hypothesis. It can also be seen as the relationship that existed between two variables used to understand a problem of study.

In this research the following hypothesis statement will be used, the alternative hypothesis statement will be used, the alternative hypothesis and null hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1

H: Product package has no influence on consumer buying habits.

H1: product package has influence on consumer buying habit

Hypothesis 2

Ho: packaging has no effect on consumers buying habits

H1: packaging has no effect on consumers buying habit

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This research work is a wide area of study considering the segmented consumers and their behaviors shown to different types of products.

1.6SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The research work is restricted to the packaging of consumer’s product only using De-United foods Limited, Abuja.The researcher choose premier antiseptic as a product to be used for the study. So any product outside this, even though good to study will be cut of the scope of the study.

1.7  LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Generally speaking all areas of human endeavor are characterized by some limiting factors. The successful completion of this work might be faced with the following limitation: time and cost could be major limiting factors, the limited time that was used to carry out this research work. That is the duration of four months mixed with academic studies might not provide room for accuracy and reliability of results. One has to make return visits to respondents before getting the questionnaire answered, which will involve increased transportation costs.

The small amount of sample taken also is a limiting factor in this research work because large sample leads to more reliability and ensure sound validity of the result.

1.8     OPERATIONALDEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

1. Packaging: This is the general group of activities in planning that involves designing and producing the container or wrapper for the products.
2. Package: This is the product container that is designed to hold a product and appear in different style and sizes. Examples are drum, cartoons, and buckets.
3. Labeling: This is simply an integral part of packaging, whether the label is a separate element attach to the package or part of the container it serves to identify a brand. That is part of package and can carry the brand name and the information about the product or package content.
4. Competition: Simply means people or firms competing with each other to gain a fair share of the market or an event.
5. Promotional mix: This can be defined as a specific combination of promotional methods used for one product or a line of products. Elements of promotional mix may include print or broadcast advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, and point of purchase display and/or merchandizing.
6. Promotion: The co-ordination of all seller initiated effort to set-up channels of information and persuasion to facilitate the sales of goods and services.
7. Consumer behavior: Is the study of when, why, how and where people do not buy a product. It also deal with the various stages a consumer goes through before purchasing a product or services for his end use.