VISHWAKARMA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT-

PUNE

Research paper

On

“Factors affecting purchase of Laptop”

Submitted by,

Sagar D. Ghenand.

Roll no:10012016

MBA – I

Div: B

1

Abstract

The rapid developments in IT sector accompanied by increased competition and acquisitions

and mergers in the market, lead both academicians and practitioners to concentrate on the

consumers’ purchase decisions in portable PC industry i.e. laptop. It was in 2005 that sales of

laptops surpassed the sales of desktop computers for the first time in India. Laptops are

popularly used in India more for their portability rather than mobility. Portability has become

the number one factor as to why more Indians are buying these portable PCs. The laptop

market in 2007 saw a significant growth to 84.8 per cent. This research seeks to develop a

better understanding of the factors influencing consumers’ laptop purchases. This research

also seeks the differences among three consumer groups (stayers, satisfied switchers, and

dissatisfied switchers) of a company with respect to the factors influencing consumers’ laptop

purchases. It is found that core technical features, post purchase services, peripheral

specifications, physical appearance, value added features, and connectivity and mobility are

the six factors that are influencing consumers’ laptop purchases.

Introduction

A customer is anyone makes regular purchases from a company or a store, while a consumer

is one who makes any transactional decisions of economic nature including buying of goods

and services. Consumer can be both personal consumer who buy for his or her own person

and family consumption and organizational consumer which could include nongovernmental

organization, political groups, companies and governments. Consumer behaviour is the study

of how individuals, group, and organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of goods, services,

ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants. Buying Behaviour refers to the buying

behaviour of the ultimate consumer. Buying Behaviour is the decision processes and acts of

people involved in buying and using products which includes social and mental processes.

According to IDC India, Laptop sales in India have raised drastically, which accounts for

over 25% of the total personal computer market. Laptop sales only accounted for a 3% of the

total personal computer till 2003. The sales of the laptops has reached a mark of 0.68 million

unit in fiscal year 2006-2007 which accounts for a growth of 59% over the same period in

fiscal year 2005-2006. Sale of desktop computers and laptops has touched the mark of 8.5

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million units in the fiscal year 2007-2008. There are various main players in the Indian

notebook market. A premier global market intelligence firm, the laptop market has registered

79% Year-on-Year (YoY) growth during 2006. The laptop sales is growing at much faster

rate than projected. India's personal computer market is undergoing a major transition.

However, laptop computers cannot completely wipe out desktop computers, because both are

designed to meet different needs or different consumer segments.

The Laptop market is growing at a fast rate because of change in work life of consumers. As

the need for "anytime anywhere" access to information is increasing, the sales of Laptops are

also increasing. Other factors that are responsible for the hike in sales figure are reduction in

prices and affordability. Laptops are now sold at approximately half the price at which they

were sold two years ago. Laptops prices are now almost at par with the desktop computer

prices. The third most important factor is duty free import of Laptops as a personal baggage

that has helped a lot in increasing the penetration level of the product among the consumer

population. Awareness about laptops has also increased over the years.

The International Data Corporation (IDC, 2006) report mentioned that in 2005 consumers

continued to respond very positively to very attractive price points, but portable demand in

the business space remained very strong too. According to What Laptop (2005), Dell was the

number one choice in worldwide with 7.9 million sales. It was followed respectively by HP

(7.4 million), Toshiba (5.8 million), IBM (4.3 million), and Acer (3.9 million) in year 2004.

Furthermore, revenue generated from notebooks has long surpassed desktops, thanks to

higher average selling prices for notebooks. According to CRN (2006) in June 2005,

notebook sales accounted for $216.1 million, or $1,442.66 per notebook whereas desktops

accounted for $113.9 million, or $762.98 per unit. The average notebook price fell 11.8

percent from $1,635.07 in the year-ago month and in the same period, desktop prices fell 5

percent from $803.38 (CRN, 2006). In addition, new product launches to the market,

acquisitions and mergers in the sector, rapid developments in the nano-technology, integrated

wireless networking, and decreased prices make it extremely vital for the companies to

understand the factors underlying consumers’ laptop purchase decisions.

Background

The literature on purchase decision in this part has been limited to IT related purchase

decisions due to the product category which will be examined in this current study.

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Consumers can prefer certain products, brands or companies over others, and to understand

the reason behind these choices is exceptionally essential in order to market existing products

more effectively than rivals. Consumers’ demographic profile, purchase perceptions, and

their attitudes towards products or brands influence their purchase decisions. Jarvenpaa and

Tedd (1996/1997) identify many factors that affect a consumer’s electronic shopping

purchase decision: product understanding, shopping experience, customer service, and

consumer risk. Geisler and Hoang (1992) identify five steps in the decision process to

purchase IT:

1. Establish or articulate the need for IT.

2. Establish or determine which unit(s) will receive the new or modified IT.

3. Select the technology.

4. Select the suppliers.

5. Authorize the purchase and sign the authorization to commit the necessary funds.

The authors conclude that services companies follow a relatively logical and analyzable

decision process. According to decision making model, consumers process the environmental

cues; the physical factors of the product, psychosocial cues, such as advertising, and

consumers put these cues into a set of perceptions that shape their preferences. Based on

these preferences, consumers make their choices subject to situational constraints, such as

price. According to Hong and Lerch (2002), people evaluate various objective features when

buying an IT product, and because of imperfect information and simplifications according to

the decision rules people often abstract these various features into few perceptual dimensions

such as ‘usefulness’ and ‘price’. In another research conducted by Kim et al. (2002), small-

office/home-office professional (SOHO) procurement choices are influenced by a number of

salient dimensions (i.e. income, performance, price, inter-purchase time, network

externalities). Furthermore, surveys have repeatedly identified performance and price as two

of the most important attributes in SOHOs' Laptop purchase decisions. In a more recent

study, Dillon and Reif (2004) examine factors influencing consumers’ e-commerce

commodity purchases, and find that a history of e-commerce purchasing have a more positive

attitude towards on-line buying.

Objective:

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To find factors influencing purchase decision of laptop.

Definition

Three groups of consumers

Stayers - Those who had never switched from a previous brand

Satisfied switchers: Those who switched for reasons other than dissatisfaction

Dissatisfied switchers: Those who switched because they were dissatisfied from their

previous brand

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Data Collection

According to the research purposes of this study, a questionnaire was prepared and then it

was spread among students and professionals of VIM and VIIT College and collected the

data of consumer buying behavior on purchase of laptop. Since this research was focused on

the factors influencing laptop purchase decisions of consumers, it was seen appropriate to

perform a traditional survey. In addition surveyor had explained the purpose of the study,

with the questionnaire to the customers.

The laptop brands examined in this research were limited by the following brands: Acer,

Dell, HP, HCL, Lenovo, Toshiba, Compaq and Sony.

A total of 50 responses were collected, but 49 of the respondents declared that they had a

laptop. Furthermore, 2 of the responses were eliminated since they were considered as

unusable, so as a consequence, 47 of the responses were covered in this study.

Questionnaire Design and Measures of Constructs

In the first part of the questionnaire, the consumers were asked whether they had a laptop or

not, and those who had a laptop were only considered in the survey. The brand name of their

laptop was also asked to the consumers. As stated earlier, this course of independent study

has classified the consumer base of a company into three groups: stayers, satisfied switchers,

and dissatisfied switchers. Therefore, the consumers in this study replied to the question

about whether the current brand that they were using was their first laptop brand or whether

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they had switched from a previous laptop brand. As a following question, consumers, who

had switched, were asked to state the reason of why they switched from a previous laptop

brand to their current brand. The options for switching included (a) overall dissatisfaction

from the previous laptop brand, and (b) reasons other than dissatisfaction. These questions

helped to divide respondents into three groups as (1) stayers (those who had never switched

from a previous laptop brand), (2) satisfied switchers (those who switched for reasons other

than dissatisfaction), and (3) dissatisfied switchers (those who switched because they were

dissatisfied from their previous laptop brand).

One of the objectives of this study was to investigate the factors that influence consumers’

laptop purchase decisions. For that purpose, a list of laptop features was stated in the

questionnaires, which were gathered from the analysis of PC journals as well as personal

interviews with the experts from the sector. The consumers were asked which factors they

found important when they were purchasing a laptop. Finally, demographic questions such as

age, occupation and gender were also asked.

DATA ANALYSIS and RESULTS

Demographic Profile of the Respondents

Of the 47 respondents, approximately 6.38% were female whereas 93.62% were male.

Additionally, almost 93.61% of all respondents were under the age of 30. The age structure of

the participants of this survey was as follows: 85.10% of the consumers was between 18-23

year old, 8.51% was between 24-29, 6.38% was 30 and above.

Of the 47 respondent 93.61% are students 6.39% are professionals.

Brand Usage Profile of the Respondents

The participants were asked to choose the laptop brand that they were using at the time of the

survey. Table 1 illustrated the frequency distribution of laptop brands by the respondents of

the survey. In other words, the frequency of laptop brands used by the respondents can be

summarized as follows: Dell 31.91%, Compaq 10.64%, Acer 12.77%, Sony 10.64%, Toshiba

4.26%, HCL 6.38%, HP 12.77%, and Lenovo 10.64 %

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Table 1: Frequency distribution of laptop brands

Frequency distribution of laptop brands

Brands Frequency Percentage (%)

Dell 15 31.91

Compaq 5 10.64

Acer 6 12.77

Sony 5 10.64

Toshiba 2 4.26

HCL 3 6.38

HP 6 12.77

Lenovo 5 10.64

Total 47 100.00

Dell Compaq Acer Sony Toshiba HCL HP Lenovo

31.91

10.6412.77

10.64

4.266.38

12.7710.64

Brand usage profile of respondent

Graph 1: Brand Usage Profile of the Respondents

Distribution of respondents according to three customers group

The respondents of this study were also asked whether the current laptop brand that they were

using was their first laptop brand or whether they had switched from a previous laptop brand.

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Furthermore, the participants who declared that they had switched from another brand were

asked to state the reason of why they had switched. The alternatives for switching included

(a) overall dissatisfaction from the previous laptop brand, and (b) reasons other than

dissatisfaction. Hence, the laptop users were classified into three groups: (a) stayers (those

who did not switch), (b) satisfied switchers (those who switched for reasons other than

dissatisfaction), and (c) dissatisfied switchers (those who switched because they were

dissatisfied from their previous laptop phone brand). Table 2 demonstrated that 85.11% of the

respondents were stayers, while 8.51% of them were satisfied switchers and 6.38% of them

were dissatisfied switchers.

Table 2: Distribution of respondents according to three customers group

Three customers groups

Frequency Percentage (%)

Stayers 40 85.11

Dissatisfied switchers 3 6.38

Satisfied switchers 4 8.51

Total 47 100.00

85.11%

6.38%

8.51%

Three customers groups

stayersdissatisfied switcherssatisfied switchers

Graph 2: Distribution of respondents according to three customers group

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Features Influencing Consumers’ Laptop Purchase Decisions

Consumers, who participated to this survey, were given a list of features related with laptops

and then they were asked to show how important these features for them while purchasing a

laptop. Respondents who found a feature “most important” gave “5” to that item while others

who found it “Least important” gave “1”. Hence, as it was seen in Table 3, processor speed

and type, memory and hard disk capacity, Brand image, after sales service and display

resolution quality became the top five features which had the following highest mean values

respectively: 4.51, 4.26, 4.04, 4.02, and 3.96. It was also noteworthy to mention that all the

features listed in the survey were considered important by the respondents since the lowest

mean value was 2.70 for the feature of TV/Audio Connection.

Table 3: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision 

Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase

decision 

Items N Mean

Processor speed & type 47 4.51

Memory & hard disk capacity 47 4.26

Brand image 47 4.04

After sales service 47 4.02

Display resolution quality 47 3.96

Repair maintenance 47 3.94

Guarantee & warrantee 47 3.70

Wireless intern ate 47 3.57

Weight 47 3.43

DVD/CD player 47 3.36

Bluetooth 47 3.30

Design and colour 47 3.23

Speakers 47 2.87

TV and audio connection 47 2.70

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Proces

sor s

peed &

type

Memory

& hard disk

capaci

ty

Brand im

age

After sal

es ser

vice

Display

reso

lution quality

Repair

main

tainan

ce

Gurantee

& w

arntee

Wire

less in

ternate

Weig

ht

DVD/CD play

er

Bluetooth

Design

and co

lour

Spea

kers

TV an

d audio co

nnection

0.000.501.001.502.002.503.003.504.004.505.00

Factor influencing laptop purchase

Graph 3: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision 

Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision stayers

Stayers shows somewhat similar trend as seen in aggregate respondent about factors

important while purchase of laptop. As processor speed and type at same place and repair and

maintenance came 2nd in case of stayers.

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Table 4: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision stayers

Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision stayers

Item N Mean

Processor speed & type 40 4.45

Repair maintenance 40 4.25

Memory & hard disk capacity 40 4.225

After sales service 40 4.05

Brand image 40 3.875

Display resolution quality 40 3.85

Guarantee & warrantee 40 3.825

Wireless internet 40 3.475

Weight 40 3.425

Bluetooth 40 3.4

DVD/CD player 40 3.325

Design and colour 40 3.075

Speakers 40 2.875

TV and audio connection 40 2.7

Proces

sor s

peed &

type

Repair

main

tainan

ce

Memory

& hard disk

capaci

ty

After sal

es ser

vice

Brand im

age

Display

reso

lution quality

Gurantee

& w

arntee

Wire

less in

ternate

Weig

ht

Bluetooth

DVD/CD play

er

Design

and co

lour

Spea

kers

TV an

d audio co

nnection

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Graph 4: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision stayers

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Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision for satisfied switchers

As results in table 5 supports the answers of respondents that ‘they were satisfied with

previous brand but wants to experience some other brand hence switched from previous

brand’ and ‘they were satisfied with their previous brand but for up gradation switched to

other brand’ as some of them mentioned now a day’s internet TV is getting popular hence for

TV and Audio connection they are upgrading and switching to other brands which provide

these technology. Thus we can see the factor which is least important in aggregate became 2 nd

important in satisfied switchers consumer group.

Thus as highest mean values for brand image 5 and TV and audio connection 5, processor

speed and type 4.75 supports answers as they consider these things important while

purchasing laptop.

Table 5: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision for satisfied

switchers

Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision satisfied

switchers

Items N Mean

Brand image 4 5

TV and audio connection 4 5

Processor speed & type 4 4.75

Repair maintenance 4 4.5

After sales service 4 3.75

Display resolution quality 4 3.75

DVD/CD player 4 3.5

Speakers 4 3.5

Memory & hard disk capacity 4 3

Guarantee & warrantee 4 3

Wireless internet 4 3

Bluetooth 4 2.75

Design and colour 4 2

Weight 4 1.75

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Brand im

age

TV an

d audio co

nnection

Proces

sor s

peed &

type

Repair

main

tainan

ce

After sal

es ser

vice

Display

reso

lution quality

DVD/CD play

er

Spea

kers

Memory

& hard disk

capaci

ty

Gurantee

& w

arntee

Wire

less in

ternate

Bluetooth

Design

and co

lour

Weig

ht0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Graph 5: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision for satisfied

switchers

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Table 6: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision for dissatisfied

switchers

Table 6 shows that while purchasing laptop dissatisfied switchers consider processor speed

and type, design and colour and brand image as important factor with highest mean of 5 each.

Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision

dissatisfied switchers

Items N Mean

Processor speed & type 3 5

Design and colour 3 5

Brand image 3 5

Wireless internet 3 4.67

Memory & hard disk capacity 3 4.33

After sales service 3 4.33

Display resolution quality 3 4

Weight 3 4

Bluetooth 3 4

DVD/CD player 3 3.33

Guarantee & warrantee 3 3

Speakers 3 2.67

TV and audio connection 3 2.67

Repair maintenance 3 2.33

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Proces

sor s

peed &

type

Design

and co

lour

Brand im

age

Wire

less in

ternate

Memory

& hard disk

capaci

ty

After sal

es ser

vice

Display

reso

lution quality

Weig

ht

Bluetooth

DVD/CD play

er

Gurantee

& w

arntee

Spea

kers

TV an

d audio co

nnection

Repair

main

tainan

ce0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Graph 6: Importance of laptop features in consumer's purchase decision for dissatisfied

switchers

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Conclusion/finding:

Year by year the number of people who are using and owning personal computers (PC)

substantially increases in all over the world. Contrary to the introduction years of computers,

today they have been used by almost all age groups, and by both males and females, and the

gap between age groups with respect to computer usage/ownership decreasing.

In such a volatile industry, it becomes extremely important to learn the factors that are

influencing consumers’ purchase decisions.

Among all the consumer groups it is found that processor speed and type and brand image are

in top five factors which are considered important while purchasing laptop.

For aggregate results processor speed and type, memory and hard disk capacity, Brand image,

after sales service and display resolution quality became the top five features which influence

purchase of laptop.

In case of stayers they show somewhat similar trend with aggregate results in important

factors considered while purchasing laptop.

In case of satisfied switchers brand image, TV & audio connection , Processor speed and

type, repair and maintenance, after sales service are top five features which they consider

most important while purchasing laptop.

In case of dis-satisfied switchers Processor speed and type, Design and colour, Brand image,

wireless internet, memory and hard disk capacity are top five features which they consider

most important while purchasing laptop.

Thus we can say that as the consumer group changes important given to factors also changes.

It is observed more in case of satisfied and dissatisfied switchers due to their experience

about various factors from previous brand.

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References:

http://www.consumermate.com/survey-report-on-consumer-buying-behavior-on-electronic-

products.html

http://www.google.co.in/

#hl=en&biw=1345&bih=583&q=consumer+buying+behavior+on+purchase+of+laptop&aq=

f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=73a526cd30607c24

http://www.learnmarketing.net/consumer.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28726420/Consumer-Buying-Behaviour-on-Electronic-Products

https://mr.pricegrabber.com/March_CBR_Portable_Laptop_Trends_ v9 _FINAL. pdf

http://www.udel.edu/alex/chapt6.html

www.p ricegrabber.com

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Annexure:

Study of factors affecting purchase of laptop

Personal information

NameContact no.Gender Male FemaleOccupation Student ProfessionalAge group 18-23 24-29 30 & above

Questions

Do you have laptop? Yes NoWhat is brand name of laptop?Whether current brand is your first brand? Yes NoIf no then reasons for changinga) Dissatisfaction from previous brand in terms of following1. Battery back up2.After sales serviceOther reason if any: b) Reason other than dissatisfaction.1. I was satisfied with previous brand but for up gradation I am switching to other brand.2. I was satisfied with previous brand but want to experience other brand.3. Other reason if any:4. To which brand you have switched :

Features influencing purchase of laptopPlease rate following items as per given scale"1" Least important"5" Most importantSr.no

.Features Rank

1 Processor speed and type2 Memory and hard disk capacity3 Guarantee and warranty4 Wireless internet5 Display resolution quality6 DVD / CD player7 Speakers8 Weight9 Bluetooth10 TV and Audio connection11 After sales service12 Repair and maintenance13 Design and colour14 Brand image

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