International Journal of Marketing and Business Communication

Abstract

Two of the most critical decisions facing marketing managers are how much to spend on communications or promotion (i.e. to determine the marketing communications budget), and how to allocate it over the major tools or elements of the communications mix (viz. advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, personal selling, public relations, and publicity).

There are four common methods used by companies to decide on the communications budget. These are the affordable method, the percentage-of-sales method, the competitive parity method, and the objective-and-task method. Many companies employ more than one method to arrive at relatively accurate budget figure.

Companies consider several factors when they allocate the communications budget, including the market size and potential, market share objectives, product market type, product life-cycle stage, and buyer-readiness stage.

The present study is undertaken to understand the usage of different communications budgeting methods and the allocation of the communications budget to the different promotional elements in Indian companies. These are further compared between consumer durables and non-durables, industrial products, and services.

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The scope of visual merchandising is growing rapidly with advances in technology. Apparel retailers need to ensure their visual merchandising has stronger impact, as competition in the present scenario is high, and retailers are ready to spend more on visual merchandising to attract customers. Visual merchandising has thus become a tool which can be used by apparel retailersto differentiate themselves from competitors.

The currentstudy examines the impact of visual merchandising, viz. store layout, in-store product display, mannequin display, and promotional signage, on impulse buying behaviour of customers in apparel retail stores. The respondents for the study included 201 customers who visit apparel stores. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire.

The results of the study suggest that visual merchandising elements do have a significant impact on impulse purchase in apparel retail stores, with store layout having the highest impact, followed by promotional signage, and mannequin display, while in-store product display did not have a significant impact on impulse purchase. Further, for men, only store layout had a significant positive impact on impulse purchase; on the other hand, for women, store layout, mannequin display and promotional signage had significant positive impact on impulse purchase.

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The present study examines emerging preferences of residential buyers in Bangalore's housing market. The buyer preferences are studied mainly to understand the housing structure coupled with facilities as offered by developers and desired by the customers. The study to large extent will help developers in Bangalore to create the right product offer for interested buyers and they should be able to increase their sales and revenues by offering the same. Most of the information available in real estate sector is about the preferred market, destination location or developer in particular market but the information on amenities and facilities desired by customers to make it convenient for them to stay, are not adequately available. The taste of customers is changing with their increased disposable income, fast-paced life and impact of self-service technology that has made some characteristics in housing projects less important and developed some innovative characteristics. This study brings out these preferences.

The variables covered in the study are type of housing prospective customers want to purchase, size of house/apartment they are looking for, size of the property, their budget, possession date, primary criterion to meet while purchasing the residential property, vaastu, puja room and servant room preferences, preference in style of kitchen, balcony usage purpose, flooring preference, window preference, amenities preference, maintenance payment preference, views on residential properties being sold online, preference in smart homes and green buildings, and last but not the least, perceptions of top developers in Bangalore.

The study also examines associations between some of the variables above, including gender and age differences in primary purchase criterion, preference for vaastu, puja room, and servant room, and preference for smart homes with green buildings, and so on.

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Reading habits are changing fast. According to Majid and Tan (2007), reading was the third most preferred leisure activity among children after hobbies and playing on computer and/or the Internet. Reading habits of researchers have also changed; researchers now tend to scan the literature in a process more akin to ‘channel surfing’ than reading. This change in behaviour has also led to a change in the way a customer approaches books in physical stores. Increase in quantity and complexity of information available has transformed the decision making process of buying reading material. Environment factors like neatness, design, ambiance, staffs’ assistance, and other factors have started influencing the book purchase.

This paper examines the factors affecting impulse purchase and impulse non-purchase by shoppers in book and stationery retail outlets in shopping malls, as well as demographic patterns of the same. The variables included were the respondent demographics, along with store-related variables relating to the respondents’ perceptions of importance of visual appeal, ambience, price, discounts/promotions, service, shop floor assistance, variety, quality, in-store navigation, and operational execution in their purchase decisions in book and stationery retail stores in malls. It’s a descriptive study.

The result of this research shows that impulse non-purchase behavior is affected by shopper demographics than by store-related variables. On the other hand, impulse purchase was affected by both shopper demographics and store-related variables.

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Tourism has been a major social phenomenon in societies all over the world. It is driven by the human desire for new experiences, and the desire to be educated and entertained. The spread of education and the technological improvements in communication have strengthened the basic human thirst for new knowledge and experience and have fostered a desire to know more about different parts of the world.

Tourism has been revolutionised with the emergence of tourism aggregators, i.e. web-based portals that provide travellers with services such as travel, accommodation, and tour planning and booking. The tourism aggregators have reduced information search costs, and have increased the awareness of tourists of potential destinations. This has enabled some innovative trends in tourism, including eco-tourism, adventure tourism, heritage tourism, medical tourism, pilgrimage tourism, and so on.

The objective of the study is to compare the competitiveness of Indian tourism aggregators using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP is a technique that is used to structure multi-criteria decisions, allowing both quantitative and qualitative comparisons between alternatives (Saaty and Forman, 1992; Saaty, 2008). The criteria used for the study include price, process, ease of access, and customer service. The tourism aggregators selected for the study include Yatra, Makemytrip, Goibibo, Cleartrip, Expedia, and Kuoni-SOTC.

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