Identify the Customer Key Purchasing Determinants on Brand Equity of Toothpaste Market (Special Reference to Colombo District)

Abstract

“Customer buying behaviour refers to the buying behaviour of the ultimate customer’’. Many factors impact on customer buying behaviour, mainly social, cultural, economic, personal and psychological factors. A buying decision is a result of each of these factors (Ramya & Ali, 2016). A buying decision is the thought process by which a customer identifies needs, generates alternatives and choose a specific product and brand. The attributes that customers value most when making a buying decision are called customer key purchasing determinants (Simpson, Griskevicius, & Roth, 2012). It is important to study the customer key purchasing determinants for the success of business organizations (Aaker, 2003). Many industries in this era are trying to expand their market worldwide. Today, with the rapid development of the economy, the standard of living of human beings has also improved rapidly. Due to this, the needs and wants of human beings are increasing today. Therefore, maintaining good oral health has become a major human need at present (Wijesinghe, 2016). In practice, brushing teeth is the easiest way to maintain good oral health. Toothpaste is used to get the best results through brushing teeth (American Dental Center, 2021). In today’s competitive economy, there is a lot of competition among toothpaste brands today. Various multinational companies and domestic toothpaste manufacturers in Sri Lanka are engaged in the sale of this toothpaste brands. Because of this, many people are concerned about brands. Although the concepts of brand have recently been debated in the field of marketing, these concepts are as old as stone age (Holt, 2004). From the earliest times manufacturers have used their brands to distinguish their products. The brand can be identified as a very important thing for sustainability in the modern business environment (Wijesinghe, 2016). Brand equity is created through brands. Brand equity is a concept. It is often defined as “added value endowed by the brand to the product” (Pitta & Katsanis, 1995). Even in case where the alternatives have more features, people choose the one brand over other brands because of the impact of brand equity. This phenomenon is described in the brand equity concept (Adam & Akber, 2016). According to this, it is clear that brand equity has a huge impact on the success of a business. Therefore, it is important to study the brand equity of the organizations and the key purchasing determinants that affect them. Accordingly, this study identifies the customer key purchasing determinants on brand equity of toothpaste market. Although some research has been done on brand equity and key purchasing determinants separately in Sri Lanka, very little research has been done on customer key purchasing determinants on brand equity. Many people have done research about the key purchasing determinants that impact on consumer behaviour. It has also targeted various markets. As examples, the beauty market, the vehicle market, the mobile phone market can be taken. Thus, most studies are based only on the customer side. Therefore, this research focused on the manufacture side also. Identifying the customer key purchasing determinants on brand equity is the objective of this study.