Buying behaviour and decision-making criteria of Base of the Pyramid consumers : the influence of packaging on fast moving consumer goods customers brand experience

Marketers increasingly face challenges in trying to understand the decision-makingprocesses and behaviours of those consumers located at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP).It has been proven that 73% of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) purchases are madeat the point-of sale, and product packaging has been found to play a strategic role in sevenof the ten in-store purchase decision criteria. Packaging is, therefore, an important basisthrough which companies can differentiate products from the plethora of competing brands.On average, big retailers carry 50 000 items and the typical shopper passes 300 items perminute. The packaging must, therefore, perform many of the sales tasks, making an overallfavourable brand impression and experience. The research has attempted to understand theconstructs of packaging and brand experience as purchasing decision criteria for FMCGproducts. The researcher administered 250 surveys with low-income consumers in the StarHyper supermarket in the mining town of Carltonville. The findings demonstrated howlow-income consumers have an appreciation of all product packaging as they often re-use itonce the product is consumed. Furthermore, lower income consumers enjoy a greater brandexperience with 'premium' product brands when compared to their brand experience levelswith what they perceive to be 'cheaper' brand products. Even though a statistical weakrelationship between product packaging and brand experience was found, the qualitativefindings support the notion of a strong relationship as lower income consumers gain morevalue/greater brand experience not just out of consuming 'premium' brand products, butalso from the use of the packaging for other needs afterwards. Copyright © 2010, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria Please cite as follows: Variawa, E 2010, Buying behaviour and decision-making criteria of Base of the Pyramid consumers : the influence of packaging on fast moving consumer goods customers brand experience, MBA dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-07232011-131708/> F11/590/hj