Factors Affect Sri Lankan Consumers to Choose Ready to Wear Garments

Abstract

Being human beings, every one has to fulfill their needs and wants. Wants are the several ways or means that a need can be satisfied. In today's turbulent and competitive business environment, there are .numerous ways that a particular need can be satisfied. In other words same product is in different brands and since the customer has to make a choice in between different brands. This becomes a critical decision to a customer who is bombarded with several brands pertaining to a single product. Therefore prior make the decision of which is to buy; the customer tends to evaluate each brand or product against with a criteria with different variables subject to them. Following the same way when the customers are going buy ready to wear garment either, they tend to evaluate them along with a criteria before buying. Hence this paper deals with an identification of the variables that the customers are involving with as the elements of their own criteria and ranking them according to the degree of importance that customers are attributing to each variable. The researchers were able to identify three four key variables that customers are looking for when buying ready to wear garments such as quality, price, dealer reputation and the brand of the garments through going depth in to secondary data . Mainly the study was based on primary data. Primary data were collected though a representative survey through which 400 questionnaires were distributed among 400 respondents who were the adult customers from Colombo, Kandy, Kurunegala and Anuradhapura districts. From each district 100 respondents were selected on the basis of 50 were female, 50 were male. Two stage cluster sampling method was used as the sampling technique. Findings showed that a higher portion amon_g the interviewed customers give priority to the variables of dealer reputation, quality, price and rather than the brand. Among the rankings first priority has given to dealer reputation, second the quality, third the price and the brand was the last to concern. Based on the results it can be concluded that in today's business environment though there is a tend towards brand image regarding all most all the products still in the garments industry brand doesn't play such a role . First the buyer selects the dealer and then evaluates the garments in terms of quality and price but the brand is not much concern. Therefore an opportunity is there to garment producers to come up with brand image developing strategies to the existing ready to wear garments market.