Amway India launches men's grooming products range

Qualitative Marketing Research Term V Individual Assignment

Submitted By Anish Ramteke 2012PGP042

Research Problem The actual problem here is how to increase market share for the mens grooming product from Amway in India. The research problem: What population of men in India use mens grooming products? How do men respond to the Amways India Mens grooming products? And how to communicate the message effectively? India has one of the youngest male populations and there is a significant increase in the lookconscious male population of India. The India market is one of the fastest growing globally for mens grooming and personal care cosmetics. There is a strong latent need in this market. When it comes to men, they like to acquire and use products that provide quick and effective results and it is that unique product proposition that these products are going to offer. All the products, formulated internationally focus on specific aspects.

Men vs. Women There exists a difference between men and women in terms of communication and hence the responses are also different. Providing some information to men may prove beneficial while the same information may not help us for women. On the other hand, women are more evolved than the Indian men and therefore its important for us to recognize the differences and then communicate effectively to women. When it comes to men, the most important aspect is that they are not easily swayed by aesthetics and are far more interested in results. Hence to market to men, concrete information and data carries maximum importance. One has to also keep the language simple and use terminology that resonates with men.

Geographically how does men differs Men have a unique shopping/consumption behaviour irrespective of the region they belong to. Hence there is not much difference geographically. The consumption trends, behaviour and pattern is similar across demographics, socio-graphics (small town population and metro population), because both are aware and well-informed of the available choices, emerging trends and usage parameters for cosmetics and personal care. Further, most of the male population from small towns mobilizes to the cities for various purposes.

Consumers as a group There exists a major difference when it comes to choices made between the male consumer and women consumers. For men, brand value, pride of association with the brand would have greater resonance than say outcome. On the other hand, women are generally conscious of brand value, experience and outcome. Women also seek referrals and recommendations more that may be sought or secured through a fraternity or friendship circle. At the same time, women also like to be different in their choice of brands or products that are uniquely applicable or effective in augmenting their personality and skincare regimes.

Qualitative technique to be used The technique which would be beneficial here is Interview method for the targeted segment that is males between 18-30 years of age. Because focussed group interviews one would not like to share the very personal information about their needs of these products. Moreover the interview is the best method to make an individual comfortable and collect the relevant information without any biases from interviewee.

Long gone are the days when only women are expected to take care of their skin, hair, and other grooming products nowadays as the lifestyle is changing men are also inclining towards the body care products for them. The young generation that is the males who have just turned 18 and are ready to enter a new era of their lifetime wants to look good in anyways possible. So the interview can be designed in order to know the reasons behind males using the grooming products. Also Amway is one of the finest companies for its products and their effect as they say we are listening so this time a men is asking for something. Also there are a lot of opportunities in this mens segment in India because there are not many larger players controlling any major market in the country. So placing the product right with the right way of communication is a major aspect of playing the game. The questionnaire for the interview would be funnel type so that in starting there are some general questions about the individuals age, occupation, spending habits, the place where they bought and other general things. Then in the later stage we can have questions a little more personal but still wide like what does cosmetics means to you? here we note that what they have in mind about the products or, Why do they use or not cosmetic? If they feel more self-confident or guilty by buying and using cosmetics? If they fear to be consider as a homosexual by using cosmetics? This will give us the idea of what is the actual perception about the mens product the consumers have in mind.

How to sample

Using a subset of the population in order to represent the whole population for our interview purpose. Probability sampling or random sampling is a technique in which the probability of getting any particular sample may be calculated. But, for the work, it has been decided to choose a non probability sampling. Performing non probability sampling is considerably less expensive than doing probability sampling, and the result have a limited value. The generalizations obtained from a non probability sample must be filtered through ones concern about the topic under study.

The profiling of the sample for our interview process is males of the age between 18-24 years, we can pick them randomly, their qualification or occupation doesnt matters as much as this stage because here just want to know how they react towards the mens grooming product, they use it or not, why, why not? Also majority of the samples will be taken from the urban and semi urban places. Also we will look how much they spend total on body care products meant for men. So income may be a factor but not that much significant. Relationship status also can play a good role in determining its effect on buying behaviour, so in this sense we can also look to include people up to age of 35. Also the lifestyle, which plays a major role in determining buying behaviour of a man using these products. Because one of our concerns is that that how to make our product gets used up or bought up more than others. A right communication strategy can be achieved if we can understand the needs of the consumers and act accordingly. And make men to buy the mens grooming product in a healthy manner rather than giving them an idea that they are losing their masculinity.

Analysis The analysis can be done on various data elements that will be collected. And the correlation between different factors will give us some number of major factors on which we have to focus the most in order to make our way ahead easy. The answers given by the people may vary from one person to other, so the deviation if is large we can neglect that set of data. As we are looking forward to a large set of data that the interviewees will give us, then form that we have to decode what actually we are looking for. So this decoding work is hard and may take much time in understanding the relevancy to what we are studying here. We may be able to sort out the factors which attract consumers to buy and use the product most and also we can know the factors which stop them to go for these products. If the data of our concern shows a high variance we can go for clustering and looking for the factors which together have a greater impact on buying behaviour and the thought process consumer go through before going to make the purchase.

Expectations from the study

What we expect from this study is that to know how a man sees himself as a buyer and user of a class of product which just like woman is now available for him as well. So here our effort is to know the perception and the belief of male population towards the product of this class. To know a way to make it easy for them to pick up Amways mens grooming product without any second thought because what Amway want is to give the best to its consumers and thus it also wants a right way of communicating the core value of its new product segment to it targeted population which is male. And as we can see that this sector is growing at a very fast rate with CAGR of 25%, if the steps taken are focused and right on the target it will become very easy game for Amway to make a powerful position in the market to avoid any competition as the time goes by. The main aspect of Amway is to make members in it as a chain process, also it attracts the customers by its superior products which have been there in market from so long and are running successfully for more than 50 years of excellent products. Amway provides the product which at the same quantity performs better than other, it focuses on quality more than setting its price lower. Amway operates in a very sophisticated way not like any other stores out there. Most of the transaction takes place over internet. Its members get the opportunity to get engage in the business every week in different meeting and gain knowledge about the various products. It gives the members to buy all the products they need to buy from Amway. So Amway basically involves its members into the business and give them a chance to grow along with the quality products which they get.

Questionnaire

1. Name.. Age. Occupational status Marital status Monthly income. 2. Which of the places you shop from A.. B.. C. D. 3. 4. 5. 6. How much do you spend monthly on body care products? What body care products you use? Do use special body care men products? Which are the body care products you use that are meant for men only?

7. What do you think about body care men product? 8. Why do you use body care product for men? 9. Why dont you use body care products for men? 10. What do you know about Amway? 11. Do you know about the products of Amway? 12. Have you tried body care products of Amway? 13. Which products have you used? 14. What difference you feel about Amwayss product than others? 15. Do you know about the way Amway operates? 16. Do you know about the opportunities it gives you other than its quality products?