Abstract:
The objective of this independent study is to investigate the purchasing and
consuming behavior as well as marketing factors affecting consumers buying decision.
The result might be used as guidelines for a marketing and operating plan in a ready-todrink
milk business and for designing marketing strategies more suitably and effectively.
The data was collected by questionnaires from a sample 400 consumers residing in
Nakhon Si Thammarat municipality.
The result of the study shows that the consumers questioned consisted mostly of
females for 65% with secondary education level for 38% and bachelors degree for 37%.
Most of them earned under 5,000 baht average monthly income for 37.25% and with
between 3-7 family members for 86.75%. For consumers buying behavior, most of them
bought the product of Dutchmill for 65.25% with the first 3 reasons of familiarity
32.95%, variety 22.99% and high quality 18.7%. Most consumers preferred mixed fruit
flavoured yogurt for 26.25%. In case that the yoghurt was unavailable, they would buy
drinking yoghurt as substitution for 52.75%. Most consumers bought one cup of yogurt
in each time for 49.50%, consumed yoghurt two-three times per week for 36.25% and
preferred eating yogurt in the evening for 37.50%. Most consumers purchased yoghurt
from general store for 39.50% and purchased for their own consuming for 68.50%. The
reason of consuming was for good health for 46.50%. Most consumers learned about
the product from television advertisement for 61% and decided to purchase by
themselves for 57.50%. The marketing factors which most consumers considered highly significant were Product, Place and Price, with the average score of 3.95, 3.94 and 3.58
respectively while considered Promotion as medium significant with 3.32 average score.
The result from analyzing the relations of personal and marketing factors shows
that sex was related to consuming time, and age was related to flavour, purchasing
quantity, place, purchasing purposes, place of information source as well as purchasing
influencer. Besides, income had relationship with purchasing quantity, frequency, place
and purchasing purposes, while education level was related to place and purchasing
purposes. Number of family members was related to purchasing place. The difference
of marketing factors i.e., product was rated differently by consumers regarding of their
age, income and occupation. Elderly customers and high income consumers gave less
importance to product factors. Most company staffs gave more importance to product
factors than other occupations did. Different age level gave different importance to price
factors; elderly customers gave less importance to price factors. Consumers income
affected opinion of place factors, high income consumers paid less importance to place
factors than the lower income groups did.
WALAILAK UNIVERSITY. CENTER FOR LIBRARY RESOURCES AND EDUCATIONAL MEDIA