a cross-sectional study” · garrett’s ranking technique in order to find out the most...

“Assessing the Purchasing Criteria of Wealthy Single Urbanites with respect to Apparels:

A Cross-sectional Study”

Author Name- Dr. Harshvardhan N. Bhavsar

Email Id- [email protected]

Contact No.- +91-9960459647

Designation- Assistant Professor

College Name- Institute of Management Studies Career Development and Research,

Ahmednagar

State- Maharashtra

Country- India

Journal of Seybold Report ISSN NO: 1533-9211

VOLUME 15 ISSUE 9 2020 1

“Assessing the Purchasing Criteria of Wealthy Single Urbanites with respect to Apparels:

A Cross-sectional Study”

Abstract-

The Indian Apparel Industry is a leading apparel industry in the world. Consumers in India

spend a lot every year buying new apparels. A new class of super consumers has recently

immerged called as the ‘Wealthy Single Urbanities’ (WSU’s). They are called super consumers

as they have a lot of disposable income and thus are spending a lot. The present study aims to

identify factors that influence purchase decision among WSU’s with respect to apparels. A

sample of 200 respondents was selected for the study. Garrett’s ranking technique was used and

it was found that style, brand name and design were the three most important factors influencing

while purchasing.

Keywords: Apparels, Garrett’s Ranking Technique, Purchasing Criteria, Wealthy Single

Urbanities



“Assessing the Purchasing Criteria of Wealthy Single Urbanites with respect

to Apparels: A Cross-sectional Study”

Introduction and Statement of the Problem -

Consumer is at the center of attention for all the marketers. Consumer decide which product or

service stays and which die early in the product life cycle. Marketers are always in search of

those early adopters, who purchase and advocate their brand. Over the years, these early adopters

have been those who had additional disposable income. Marketers have seen this super

consumer’s class change from DISC (Double income single child) to DINK (Double income no

kid) consumers. Recently a new class of super consumers1 has immerged called as the ‘Wealthy

Single Urbanities’ (WSU’s).

WSU’s 2 are 28-42 year old, 1% of India’s population which makes them 13 million in number.

They have high standard of living and greater disposable income. They earn above 50,000 per

month, and spend heavily on food, entertainment, shopping, drinks, and utilities. WSU’s work

for long hours and keep career and money matters as their top priority. These WSU’s are earning

handsome amount and thus have a good chunk as disposable income. In addition to this, these

super consumers act as early adaptors for many latest products and services.

Apparel industry 3 contributes 2.3% to India’s GDP and accounts for 13% of industrial

production, and 12% of the country’s export earnings. The textiles and apparel industry in India

is the second-largest employer in the country providing employment to 45 million people.



Companies involved with apparel industry keep on trying different strategies to attract

customers.

WSU’s spend extensively on apparels and see to it that they use apparel only once and do not

repeat it for any other occasion. Considering this behavior of WSU’s they form an important

segment for apparel marketers. The current research tries to identify factors that WSU’s consider

while purchasing apparels thus, helping apparel companies in understanding this new super

consumers in a better way.

Review of Literature -

Wealthy single urbanities (WSU’s) are the new set of super consumers that have recently

evolved. These super consumers spend a lot on shopping, particularly apparels. Many

researchers have conducted study on what are the factors that influence customers in buying

apparels. Irene Kamenidou, John Mylonakis and Konstantina Nikolouli 4 (2007) tried to find

factors among customers that influence them to purchasing apparels in Greece. The study found

“status and image”, “quality of the product”, “marketing reasons” and “in fashion” as the factors

that influence purchase.

Deepali Saluja 5 (2016) in her research paper along with factors that influence purchase studied

consumer behavior also. She found that quality, comfort, brand are the main criteria’s which

impact customers buying behavior towards fashion apparels. On the similar lines, Dr. K.

Balanaga Gurunathan and M. Krishnakumar 6 (2013) in their research found that store attributes,

promotion and reference groups are the important dimensions of apparel buying behavior. Dr.



P.Vikkraman and N.Sumathi 7 (2012) found self concept and need for uniqueness as the most

influencing factor in their work.

Pawan Kumar and Kanchan 8 (2012) studied perception of consumers towards branded apparel.

Similar study was conducted by T. Sreerekha, S.Praveen Kumar 9 (2018) in Coimbatore city.

They tested relationship between the variables which impact consumer buying behaviour for

apparel products.

Cham, T.H., Ng, C.K.Y., Lim, Y.M. and Cheng, B.L. 10 (2018) in their research studied factors

influencing clothing interest among Generation Y consumers in Malaysia. Results showed that

need for uniqueness, self-concept, brand image, word of mouth, and perceived quality are

significant predictors of clothing interest among the Generation Y consumers in Malaysia.

The above literature review shows that a lot of research has been done on factors influencing

customers while purchasing apparels. Also research on consumer behavior and their perception

with regards to apparels has been done. No research has been done on purchasing criteria of

wealthy single urbanites (WSU’s) with respect to apparels. The present study deals with this

research gap and proposes to assess purchasing criteria of wealthy single urbanites (WSU’s) with

respect to apparels.

Objectives of the Study -

1. To identify factors that influence purchase decision among WSU’s with respect to

apparels.

2. To find correlation between income and monthly purchase done by WSU’s.



Hypotheses of the Study -

Ho – There is no association between income and monthly purchase.

Ha - There is association between income and monthly purchase.

Methodology Adopted-

The researcher in order to achieve its objective will collect primary data from wealthy single

urbanites that purchase apparels from different brick and mortar stores. The details research

methodology to be followed is as follows-

i. Research Design- Descriptive research design

ii. Area of research- Pune city

iii. Type of data- Primary and secondary data both

iv. Instrument for Primary data collection- Questionnaire

v. Secondary data- Review of literature including international and national scholarly

papers. Conference proceedings, peer-reviewed articles, magazines, newspapers,

reports, books and internet etc

vi. Sample Size- 200

vii. Sampling method- Convenience sampling method

viii. Statistical techniques used-

a. Garrett’s Ranking Technique b. Pearson’s Correlation



Data Analysis and Interpretation-

1. Ranking of factors that affect purchase decisions amongst WSU’s -

Table No.1- Table showing ranking of factors that affect purchase decisions amongst

WSU’s

Factors Rankings

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total

Brand Name 30 38 28 22 27 33 12 2 5 3 200

Price 18 17 25 27 20 33 3 10 20 27 200

Return Policy 12 8 17 22 20 29 18 21 23 30 200

Style 32 42 31 24 20 31 9 5 4 2 200

Design 31 40 22 40 10 14 22 9 8 4 200

Quality 20 21 33 22 9 14 14 30 21 16 200

Comfort 19 16 14 28 20 32 23 22 19 7 200

Derived value 9 5 15 33 23 36 21 17 19 22 200

Discount 17 16 20 29 22 33 10 21 9 23 200

Environment 14 9 21 32 31 34 4 11 16 28 200

The above table shows the ranking of factors that affect purchase decisions amongst WSU’s.

Respondents were asked to rank various factors like brand name, price, return policy, style,

design, quality, comfort, derived value, discount and environment according to their preferences

from rank 1 to rank 10 were, rank 1 being most preferred and rank 10 being least preferred. The

results above show that the ranking were widely distributed. So, to further understand which

were the most important factors according to the respondents while purchasing apparels Garrett’s

ranking technique was used.



2. Garrett’s Ranking Technique

In order to find out the most significant factor according to the respondents, Garrett’s ranking

technique 11 was used. With the help of Garrett’s Table, the percent position estimated was

converted into scores. Then for each factor, the scores of each individual were added and then

total value of scores and mean values of score was calculated. In the table given below (Table

No.2) percent position of ranks assigned from 1 to 10 and their respective Garrett’s table value is

given.

Table No.2- Percent position of ranks assigned and their respective Garrett’s table value

Rank Percentage Position Garrett’s Table Value

1 5 82

2 15 70

3 25 63

4 35 58

5 45 52

6 55 48

7 65 42

8 75 37

9 85 30

10 95 18

By applying the Garrett’s ranking technique and thereby the Garrett’s table value was obtained

for each of the 10 ranks. Garrett’s table values were then multiplied with the rankings given to



each factor by the respondents. The total score, mean score and thus the final rank obtained is as

shown in the table given below (Table No.3)

Table 3: Table showing calculation of Garrett’s value and ranking

Factors

Rankings

Total Mean Score

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Brand Name 2460 2660 1764 1276 1404 1584 504 74 150 54 11930 59.65 2

Price 1476 1190 1575 1566 1040 1584 126 370 600 486 10013 50.07 7

Return Policy 984 560 1071 1276 1040 1392 756 777 690 540 9086 45.43 10

Style 2624 2940 1953 1392 1040 1488 378 185 120 36 12156 60.78 1

Design 2542 2800 1386 2320 520 672 924 333 240 72 11809 59.05 3

Quality 1640 1470 2079 1276 468 672 588 1110 630 288 10221 51.11 5

Comfort 1558 1120 882 1624 1040 1536 966 814 570 126 10236 51.18 4

Derived value 738 350 945 1914 1196 1728 882 629 570 396 9348 46.74 9

Discount 1394 1120 1260 1682 1144 1584 420 777 270 414 10065 50.33 6

Environment 1148 630 1323 1856 1612 1632 168 407 480 504 9760 48.80 8

From the above table it is seen that, ‘style’ was the most important factor with total score of

12156 and mean score of 60.78. This was followed by ‘brand name’ and ‘design’ with mean

score of 59.65 and 59.05 respectively. ‘Derived value’ and ‘return policy’ were the least

important factors with mean score of 46.74 and 45.43 respectively.

Similar results were obtained by Pawan Kumar and Kanchan (2019) 12 in their research on

apparels were ‘style’ was followed by ‘design’ as the top two most influential factors instead of

‘style’ and ‘brand name’ as found in current study.

3. Pearson’s Correlation

Pearson’s correlation test was done to check the hypothesis, if there was any relationship

between income and monthly purchase done by WSU’s. Initially scatter plot diagram was plotted

to check there was a linear relationship between the two variables. There did exist linear

relationship between income and monthly income as shown below.



Fig 1: Figure showing linear relationship between income and monthly purchase

Further, Pearson’s correlation test was conducted using SPSS software. The result are shown in

table below –

Table 4: Table showing Pearson’s Correlation Value

Correlations

Monthly_income Monthly_purchase

Monthly_income

Pearson Correlation 1 .750**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 200 200

Monthly_purchase

Pearson Correlation .750** 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 200 200

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).



A Pearson correlation was run to determine the relationship between income and monthly

income among WSU’s. It was found that, there was a strong, positive correlation between

income and monthly purchase, which was statistically significant (r = .750, n = 200, p = .000).

Thus, the null hypothesis was rejected and alternate hypothesis was accepted.

Conclusion-

The present study was conducted to identify factors that attract WSU’s while purchasing

apparel’s. It was found that style, brand name and design were the most influential factors among

WSU’s while purchasing apparel’s. The study also tried to find out if their exists any relationship

between income and monthly purchase. The study found that was a strong, positive correlation

between income and monthly purchase, which was statistically significant.

References -

1. Nielsen Report 2018. Available at

:https://www.nielsen.com/in/en/insights/report/2018/wealthy-single-urbanites-go-

premium/[Accessed on 2 January 2020]

2. New Super consumers. Avaiable at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-

business/new-class-of-single-urbanites-emerges-as-super-

consumers/articleshow/65466005.cms [Accessed on 2 January 2020]



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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/new-class-of-single-urbanites-emerges-as-super-consumers/articleshow/65466005.cms



3. Apparel industry in India. Available at: https://www.investindia.gov.in/sector/textiles-

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https://www.investindia.gov.in/sector/textiles-apparel

https://www.investindia.gov.in/sector/textiles-apparel

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/12384560/An_exploratory_study_on_the.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DAn_exploratory_study_on_the_reasons_for.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200215%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200215T110913Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=8c55d6718a070bc9f9650a9d89c8834966aef52cd65fb39d56e11adef818b6fa








http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Conf.15010/Volume%201/13.%2082-86.pdf

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bd7a/343137e012d2b4262dada49c43648fe544fd.pdf

http://zenithresearch.org.in/images/stories/pdf/2012/Feb/ZIJBEMR/1_ZIJBEMR_VOL2_ISSUE2_FEB2012.pdf

http://zenithresearch.org.in/images/stories/pdf/2012/Feb/ZIJBEMR/1_ZIJBEMR_VOL2_ISSUE2_FEB2012.pdf

http://www.icommercecentral.com/open-access/an-analytical-study-of-consumer-buying-behavior-towards-fashion-apparels-in-ludhiana.php?aid=86434

http://www.icommercecentral.com/open-access/an-analytical-study-of-consumer-buying-behavior-towards-fashion-apparels-in-ludhiana.php?aid=86434

http://www.ijsdr.org/papers/IJSDR1803012.pdf

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/148366899.pdf

a cross-sectional study” · garrett’s ranking technique in order to find out the most...

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