INTRODUCTIONEvery businessman wants to increase the sale of goods that he deals in. He can adopt several ways for that purpose. Some of these are incentives offered by manufacturers or dealers to increase the sale of their goods. These incentives may be in the form of free samples, gifts, discount coupons, demonstrations, shows, contests etc. All these measures normally motivate the customers to buy more and thus, it increases sales of the product. This approach of selling goods is known as sales promotion. The business world today is a world of competition. A business cannot survive if its products can not be sold in the market. Thus, all marketing activities are undertaken to increase sales. Producers may spend a lot on advertising and personal selling. Still the product may not be sold out. So incentives need to be offered to attract customers to buy the product. Thus, sales promotion is important to increase the sale of any product.

In this age of globalization hyper competition has become a regular feature. Today the markets are no less then battlegrounds and one has to strive very hard for survival and growth. To survive in this highly competitive market Sales promotions have become a vital tool for marketers. Now a day most of the consumer durables and electronic goods companies considering sales promotion as an important part of their marketing strategy and the importance of consumer sales promotion in the marketing mix of the consumer durables and electronic goods category throughout the world have increased. However, in order to enhance the effectiveness of these activities, manufacturers should understand consumer and retailer interpretations of their promotional activities. Companies spend considerable time on planning such activities.

Resultantly consumers now have a choice of wide range of products, quality and prices. Some of the ways offered by manufacturers or dealers to increase the sale of their goods are incentives. These incentives may be in the form of free samples, gifts, discount coupons, demonstrations, shows, contests etc. All these measures normally motivate the customers to buy more and thus, it increases sales of the product. This approach of selling goods is known as sales promotion.

In the emerging business scenario various promotional techniques are used by the marketer for influencing the purchase decision of their consumers. Sales promotion, a key element of promotional mix has been widely used to sustain competitive advantage, increase sales and stimulate consumer purchase decision, is becoming a valuable tool for marketers to influence purchase decision.

The purchase decision related to the goods depends on various factors like brand, quality, after sales services, warranty, advertising, rebates, offers, discount, mode of payment, display, sales person behaviour, store location and many more. Efforts are being made by marketers to plan the optimum combination of the factors that can increase the sales of their products.

Traditionally, sales Promotions have been used by marketer to increase sales in the short term. However, in the last few decades this communication tool has evolved and now is considered from a strategic point of view. For this reason, it is necessary to realize new studies in this area and study how consumers evaluate sales promotions.

A greater understanding of the different types of consumer responses to promotions can help managers to develop effective promotional programs as well as provide new insights for consumer behaviour theorists who seek to understand the influence of different types of cues on consumer behaviour.

The consumer durables industry in India is set for sustained growth over the long term, fuelled by favourable consumer demographics, overall growth in services and industrial sectors and infrastructure development in suburban and rural areas. Several Indian and MNC players are looking to strengthen their presence in India to leverage this opportunity.

In such a scenario, it is very essential to study how consumers make their choices in consumer durables and electronic goods category where there are several brands in the consideration set of a consumer.

Understanding the effectiveness of a particular sales promotion campaign in the market space isn't easy. The sales cycle can be lengthy, and tying revenue and incremental sales to any sales promotion program is difficult. So it is important for firm to measure the effectives of the sales promotion to increase their future ROI on sales promotion.This research will try an attempt to examine the nature of sales promotion in consumer durables and electronic goods sector on the sub urban areas. Study will also try to get an insight into customer perception about these promotions

Businesses today are continually looking for ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their operations. Coming under increasing pressure and scrutiny are promotional expenditures like public relations, personal selling, advertising, and sales promotions because they have long been among the most challenging marketing costs to analyze or justify on a profit versus cost basis. It is important to understand which technique has greater impact on Consumer for appropriate budgeting decisions. Marketers spend an enormous amount of time finding out what consumers really want and what promotions will be most effective. Given the very large expenditures allocated to sales promotion tools, understanding what strategy to use for a given promotional cost/value remains important. The Indian consumer durables industry has witnessed a considerable change over the last few years. Changing lifestyle and higher disposable income coupled with boom in the real estate and housing industry and a surge in advertising have been instrumental in bringing about a sea change in the consumer behaviour pattern. Consumer durables involve any type of product purchased by consumers that is manufactured for long-term use. As opposed to many goods that are intended for consumption in short term, consumer durables are intended to endure regular usage for several years or longer before their replacement is required. Just about every household contains at least a few items that may be considered to be of consumer durable nature. With India being the second fastest growing economy having a huge consumer class, consumer durables have emerged as one of the fastest growing industries in India.SALES PROMOTION:

Typically organisations choose one or more of the following methods to promote their products, services or ideas. These methods are known as Promotion Mix 1. Advertising2. Personal Selling3. Sales Promotion4. Publicity5. Direct MarketingSales Promotion offers are generally communicated to the target group by using one or more of the above methods as a vehicle to carry the Sales Promotional message.There is a wide spectrum of views and different experts have defined sales promotion on different ways-According to Philip Kotler, Sales Promotion consists of a diverse collection of incentive tools , mostly short term , designed stimulate quicker or greater purchase of products or services by consumers or the trade.Roger Strang has given a more simplistic definition i.eSales Promotion is short term incentives to encourage purchase or sales of a product.To sum up Sales Promotion can be referred to many kinds of incentives and techniques directed towards consumers and traders with the intention to persuade potential customers to buy the products and service and generate short term sales effect.

CONSUMER ORIENTED SALES PROMOTION:

Various sales promotion tools are used with respect to the specific targets to motivate them in action. There are 3 target groups to whom sales promotion measures are normally aimed at.1. Consumer Promotion:Sales promotion directed at the end user whether by Manufacturer or the Retailer is known as Consumer Promotion or Consumer Oriented Sales Promotion.The objective of most consumer promotion is to stimulate consumer to buy a brand. Manufacturers announced promotions to consumers are based on Pull Strategy of the Manufacturer. However retailer announced promotions to consumers constitute Push Strategy of the retailer.2. Trade Promotions:As the name suggests, trade promotion are directed at the Re-seller. Trade promotions are part of Push Strategy of the manufacturers by offering incentives to resellers.3. Sales Force Promotion:Sales promotion activities directed at the sales people are referred to as Sales Force Sales Promotion. These schemes are intended to motivate sales people to put in more effort to increase sales, promote new and seasonal products and book more orders.

CONSUMER DURABLES:Consumer durable is one of the fastest growing industry segments in India accounting for 7.3 billion USD in Financial year 2011-12. According to a report of Corporate Catalyst India on Consumer durables, the consumer durable market recorded a CAGR( Compound Annual Growth Return) of 12.2% from Financial year 2003 to Financial year 2011. While, it is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 14.8 % in financial year 2015.Shares in the consumer durables market in India in Financial Year 2011 is for Urban Consumers is 65% while Rural consumer market accounts for 35% of total share. Rural and semi-urban markets are likely to contribute a majority of consumer durables sales. This sector is expected to post a CAGR of 15% over 2010-15. Growth in demand from rural and semi-urban market is estimated to outpace demand from urban market for consumer goods.The consumer durables industry can be broadly classified into two segments: Consumer Electronics and Consumer Appliances. Consumer Appliances can be further categorised into Brown Goods and White Goods. The key product lines under each segment are as follows.White Goods [ Refrigerators , Washing Machines ,Air-conditioners , Speakers and Audio Equipments]Consumer Durables Kitchen Applicances/Brown Goods [Mixers , Grinders , Microwave Ovens , Iron , Electric Fans , Cooking Range ,Chimneys]Consumer Electronics [Mobile Phones , Televisions , MP3 Players, DVD Players ,VCD Players]According to report of India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) the consumer durables market is split into two key segments-Consumer electronics (brown goods) Televisions,CD and DVD players, Laptops, Electronic accessories, Audio and video systems Personal computers Digital cameras CamcordersConsumer appliances (white goods) Air conditioners, Washing machines, Electric fans, Microwave ovens, Refrigerators, Sewing machines, Cleaning equipment, other domestic appliancesLiterature review An attempt is made here review some selected works on consumer behaviours on consumer durables. 1.Aradhana Krishna (2003) viewed that buyers purchase behaviours can be influenced not only by the current prices of a product but also by those prices expect in the future.2.Bhawaniprasad and Kumari (1987) have analyzed Impact of advertising on consumer durables markets: A study of Refrigerator consumer, in this study a ranking/importance of refrigerator among other consumer durables is studied. Study of 200 owners of Allwyn refrigerator in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and Districts of Nizamabad and Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh indicates that a very positive impact of advertising is found on the consumer durables market.3.Bayus (1991) studied The consumer durable replacement buyer, and found that replacements account for a substantial portion of the sale of consumer durables in the U S. Results of replacement of automobiles indicate that early replacement buyers are more concerned with styling and image and less concerned with costs than late replacement buyers.4.Gupta & Verma (2000) have done a study under convenience sampling of 50 household of New Delhi by questionnaire. It indicates that husbands influence is considerably higher that the wives. Children also play an active role in brand selection of CTV.5.Jain and Sharma (2000) studied 584 respondents out of 800 questionnaires of Delhi in five professional category observed that selected products represent different product categories in terms of both durability and frequency of purchase as required. Study shows that the levels of consumer involvement differ across products. As against non-durables, consumer perceives durables as more involving products.Some other studies on the same topic are given -(Mishra, 2012) Sales promotion is one of the seven aspects of the promotional mix that adopts short term, non-recurring methods to boost up sales in different ways. In this paper, an attempt has been made to find out the major dimensions of consumers perception about the benefits they derive from different types of sales promotion schemes in durable goods and to build a framework showing the valid relationships among all types of multiple consumer benefits of sales promotion in consumer durables. This exploratory study is mainly based on field survey carried out in India. The findings indicate that consumers perceive factors like savings, higher product quality, shopping convenience categorized as utilitarian benefits and value expression, entertainment, exploration categorized as hedonic benefits as primary reasons for taking advantage of various sales promotion schemes.

Research evidence from the study, Free Gifts with Purchase: Promoting or Discounting Brands? in the Journal of Consumer Psychology by Priya Raghubir in 2005 suggests that sales promotions positively affect shot-term sales. While it has revealed in the Research on price promotion named, How Promotions Work in the Marketing Science Journal by Blattberg R.C, Briesch R. and Fox E.J in 1995 that Price based promotional offers have consistently followed by high sales. Studies have shown that price promotions enhance brand substitution within a product category (Dodson et al, 1978). However, there have also been studies that suggest that sales promotion affects brand perception.On the other hand, Esfahani and Jafarzadeh(2012) found that there is no meaningful relationship between impulsive buyer behaviour and sales promotion. In spite of studies showing that sales promotion is not effective and that it is a waste of the firms resources and erodes brand loyalty, others hold contrary views that it increases sales and induces the consumers to do impulse buying.

OBJECTIVES:1. To identify various consumers oriented sales promotion schemes used in Consumer durables .2. To know the level of consumers awareness towards sales promotion schemes in Consumer durables.3. To study the consumers preferences towards sales promotion schemes offered in Consumer durables .4. To examine the impact of sales promotion tools on consumers purchase decisions towards Consumer durables. RESEARCH METHODOLOGYSAMPLING UNIT:

Individual Consumers / Customers And Dealers To make the study more effective and to know the marketers point of view behind offering schemes it is necessary to get responses from retailers.

SAMPLE SIZE:

It is proposed to elicit responses from 100 individuals and 10 Dealers from Rewa city of M.P.

SOURCES OF DATA:

Both primary and secondary data will be used for the purpose of study.

METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION:Primary Method- A Structured Questionnaire and Schedule will be employed to collect the primary data.Questionnaire will contain dichotomous, multiple choice and close ended questions to facilitate the consumers give response. Secondary Method- The secondary data will be taken from sources like Books, Newspapers, Magazines, Journals and relevant Websites.

SAMPLING METHOD:

Convinence sampling method will be taken to know the opinion , preferences and responses towards questions on the matter of Sales Promotion .LIMITATIONS:

1. As the research is proposed to conduct study on Rewa so it might be difficult to obtain complete information from respondents due to factors like hesitation to fill up instrument, area is geographically widely scattered and their willingness to cooperate.2. There may be variations in actual and disclosed preferences of consumers.3. The study is confined to Rewa only due to financial and time constraint so large scale generalised projections cannot be made on this basis.4. Consumer durables is so large that it is a herculean task to get results of sales promotion schemes on every sub sector or category.

CHAPTER PLAN:

Chapter 1IntroductionChapter 2Review of LiteratureChapter 3Objectives, Hypothesis and Research MethodologyChapter 4Data Analysis, Hypothesis testing and InterpretationChapter 5Findings and DiscussionChapter 6Conclusion and RecommendationsBibliography and Appendix