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Impact of Product Price and Quality on Consumer Buying Behavior: Evidence from Pakistan
Dr. Ansir Ali Rajput Associate Professor, Entrepreunsership Mohammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad

Sabir Hussain Kalhoro MS (Management Science) Mohammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad

Raja Wasif MS (Management Science) Mohammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad

Abstract This study focuses on the impact of product price and quality on consumer buying behavior. The broad problem area of the study was the influence of product price and product quality of the consumer buying behavior in Pakistan. Cultural theory of buying behavior was used. Data was collected through self-administered questionnaires from 100 respondents of the general public of Pakistan, who was involved in the purchasing process. Convenience sampling was for data collection. Correlation and regression analysis were used. The results revealed that there were significant positive relationships found among product price, on the buying behavior and product quality has negative relationship with buying behavior. This study will help Pakistani consumer market to improve pricing and product quality strategies, some more work to be done like after sales services and other variables on buying behavior. Key words Product Price, Product Quality, Buying Behavior, Pakistan

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INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS Introduction

Pakistani market is functioning under in perfect competition, because now the era of globalization. The consumer is the one who uses all available resources especially, quality, price, time and services to decide about the product or services. The continuous rise in prices, instability of Government and security issues has badly affected buying behavior of a consumer in Pakistan. The marketing managers are trying to find the solutions to satisfy the basic requirements of a customer since it is a prime responsibility of the marketer is to fulfill customer satisfaction. The initial challenge for every firm should be considered and enhancement of deeper understanding of customer support areas and their impact on customer loyalty (Krumay, & Brandtweiner, 2010). Consumer behavior patterns are quite related to each other, specifically in the aspects like quality, pricing and decision making (Kumar, 2011). Saharudin et al. (2011) found that the business firms must precisely the relationship with regard to price, the buyers own self-concept and ownership position in a purchase decision. A deeper understanding regarding the quality is very important for every marketer. The customer satisfaction and quality products are parallel in relationships with price, expertise, timeliness, service and the physical environment (Lacobucci, Ostrom & Grayson, 1995). Zeithaml, (1988) found that perception of consumers of quality change over a time as a result of added information, increased by changing expectations and completion in a product category. The consumers base their purchasing decision on information indications and signals like product name, design & price (Samiee, 1994). The other major factors influencing buying behavior are basically cultural, social, personal and psychological. The consumers are eager of enhancing their standards of living with hygienic and reasonably high quality products and get rid of low quality products. To attract the consumer marketing strategies play very essential for future growth of many firms. The associations between opportunities of social influence, price, economy and personality/belief to understand the consumer perception (Haque, Khitabi & Rahman, 2009). This study will help Pakistani consumer market to develop new innovative strategies to grab more customers. The research questions of this study are: Is there any relationship between consumer buying behavior, product

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price and product quality? And Is there any impact of product price and product quality of consumer buying behavior?

Literature Review
The consumer buying behavior has been a debatable topic for the past so many decades around the world; previously many researchers have studied this topic and found exploratory findings in different contexts. The central purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of product price and product quality of consumer buying behavior. The marketer must inspect the consumer buying behavior by consumer psychological behavior and social concerns (Shabbir et.al 2012). According to Kurtulus et al. (2005) the influence of consumer psychographics on their tendency to purchase retailer brands, that must be valid and reliable so the consumers are more price conscious and prefer and purchase retailer brands. Most of the consumers need

convenience and quality products that strongly motivate them to buy the same product more frequently in the future (Ahuja, Gupta, & Raman, 2003). Ahmad, & Vays, (2011) found that the pre-decision time of consumer purchasing behavior recognized solid link with the desire purchasing Behavior of the consumers. Product Price The product price factor is always been an important factor in customer/consumer buying process in every context. They always examine price and brand name information differently when they are making judgments on the dimensions of quality: ease of use, usefulness, performance, durability, and status (Brucks, Zeithaml & Naylor, 2000). The marketing managers have to think broader to have a common on two factors such as capability control and strategic dynamic pricing policies (Moe & Fader, 2009). The customer must be facilitated with some packages in products. Bie & Chiao (2001) found that the marketing managers should highlight the service quality as well as but also price fairness in total consumer satisfaction program. According to Chang & Wildt (1998) the price has its significant influence on perceived quality when it is the only information indicated available. According the study of consumer prefers to have a price and quality rather than technical aspects in durable goods (Chui et al. 2006).

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In purchasing process consumer look for three main things prices, convenience, and recommended by someone, but security and privacy are the major factors that hesitates consumers to purchase products online (Rehman et al. 2011). The collectivism atmosphere of Chinese compels them to do online purchasing, furthermore they make any purchase decisions based on the review which they believed (Park et al. 2011). The innovative consumers also perceive high risk and insecurity in their buying behavior through internet (Atchariyachanvanich & Hitoshi 2007). The basic marketing tool of attention is price and the value of pricing can be measured into the effects of costs, markups, and side payments (Chintagunta, 2002). As previous studies also found that Certain demographic groups such as females, married persons, old people and home workers are more responsible to examine for, and use, price information consciously. The literature suggests that price has great impact in consumer buying behavior very effectively. Every consumer needs more awareness regarding the price and fairness in price in the shape of packages and discounts. H1: There is a positive relationship between product price and consumer buying behavior. Product Quality The quality of the product you produce, that will lead to a successful outcome in the long run for every in this world. In business there are five most important dimensions which make a successful business and these are service quality, tangible, reliability, responsiveness assurance and identification (Azadavar, Shahbazi, & Teimouri, 2011). Also Satya, (2011) found that it is compulsory for the firms to maintain their quality because people are more conscious of quality than price. Most of the Asian country consumers would want to have European or American product to have better quality, so they always consider the MADE IN in their buying behavior (Abedniya, 2011). The assessment of consumer on a product based on quality is very essential characteristic in purchasing processes and consumers are conscious of quality difference of all products (Nugroho, & Wihandoyo, 2009). The consumers sometime go for better quality brand rather than considering of the price factor. The consumers are most likely to purchase famous but better quality brands in the market instead less known brand they also ready to pay higher prices for
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renowned brand (Boonlertvanich, 2009; Pelsmacker, Driesen & Rayp, 2005). Business goals will be easy to achieve if service quality can be treated as a construct different stages so understanding and assurance are the most important in service quality (Fogarty, Catts&Forlin, 2000). An effective business-to-business relationships for many firm service quality is more significant rather than product quality, these unique challenges achieve customer satisfaction (Rossomme, 2003). Quality is the major concern in every field of life, whether you buying some product or services. Tsiotsou, (2006) found a positive direct effect of perceived quality on purchase intentions. The literature suggests that there is a significant role of product quality in buying behavior but it may vary from culture to culture. So the previous research suggests that quality is an important input to consumer satisfaction it was hypothesized that: H2:There is positive relationship between product quality and consumer buying behavior. Theoretical Model

Research Methodology
This research is a quantitative research where sources of information are gathered from questionnaires. Instrument utilized was through the self-administered questionnaire containing closed-ended and scales to matrix questions. This study is interested in describing the characteristics of a population or phenomenon, thus the study is a descriptive study. This study also used hypotheses testing to determine the influence of price and quality on buying behavior. The type of sampling is probability sampling. Out of the total population, 100 responded. Pre-

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testing of the questionnaire was made during the pilot study. The scale was piloted amongst a sample of twenty (20) private workers and university students.

Data Analysis Method For the purpose of this study, the researchers used the Statistical Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20 to compute all the data gathered from the questionnaire. The techniques of analysis used in this study were descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential analysis (regression) to sum up the data collected. The questionnaires used are adopted from the questionnaires developed by past researchers. In order to help to describe the sample characteristics in the data analysis report, demographic data (Section A) such as age, gender, education, and occupation are included in the questionnaire. The measures have been adopted (Yuejin Li, 2004). We communicated to respondents with well-prepared chronologically organized questionnaire. These data are structured in a range of response option, rather than seeking exact figures. In the subsequent section, all the study variable scales are measured using a Likert scale rated varying from 1 to 5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree). Price was constructed in four measurement items, quality was also constructed in four measurement items, and buying behavior in four measurement items respectively. Table 1 Reliability Analysis Variables Product Price Product Quality Buying Behavior Cronbachs alpha_________________ .866 .826 .869______________________

The scales were investigated in terms of their reliability, by means of the internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha). The individual reliability of the variables was measured as .866 for product price scale, product quality scale .826 and .869 for buying behavior scale, but the overall reliability of the questionnaire responses was satisfactory at greater the .70 as discussed earlier.

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Correlation: Inter-correlation among all study variables are shown in Table 2. Correlation analysis indicates that there is a significant positive relationship between product price and quality positive relationship between consumer buying behavior (r = .828, p < .000); respectively. Product price positively significantly with buying behavior (r = .823, p < .000). Similarly, product quality had a significant positive relationship with buying behavior (r = .643, p < .000). Table 2. Correlation Serial

Mean

St. Deviation

Product Price 1 .828** .823**

Product Buying Quality Behavior

Product Price Product Quality Buying Behavior Table 3. Model Summary Model PP PQ Regression Analysis: Table 4. Coefficients Model R 1 .826a

3.4600 3.3750 3.3450

.70686 .67933 .67306

1 .643**

1_____

Beta .923 -.120

t 9.031 -1.187

Sig__________ .000 .238_________

PP= Product Price, PQ = Product Quality, BB =Buying Behavior

R Square .682

Adjusted R Square .675

Std. Error of the Estimate .38364

Further, we conducted a multiple regression analysis to test hypotheses 1 to 2. The regression analysis results for product price and product quality are presented in above mentioned Tables. The R-square is 0.682 and F Value 103.858. The hypotheses H1 is accepted, but H2 was rejected because most of the respondents were giving priority to price here in Pakistan, most of the respondent price conscious, they want to buy as much as they can because there has been an unstable situation in Pakistan.

Conclusion and Discussion

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The results of this research study clearly indicate that there is a significant and positive relationship between price and buying behavior but there is a negative relationship between quality on buying behavior in Pakistan. Here consumers are more conscious regarding the price rather quality. The continuous rise in prices, instability of Government and safety security issues have badly affected buying of a consumer in Pakistan. The marketing managers are trying to find the solutions to satisfy the basic requirements of a customer since it is a prime responsibility of the marketer is fulfilling customer satisfaction. This study will help Pakistani market to enhance the quality and to bring new strategies in price to grab more customers in a competitive market. The associations between opportunities of social influence, price, economy and personality/belief to understand the consumer perception (Haque, Khitabi & Rahman, 2009). The finding presented in this article has significant impact on both price and quality, one thing has been noticed during the survey that people do give more focus to price rather quality because of low income level. People have more alternatives in products that are the reason people go for lower price products. The results clearly indicated that product price has a positive relationship with consumer buying behavior but product quality has negative relationship, and there is a significant impact on buying behavior of these two variables. The main objective of the study was to identify the impact of product price and product quality in consumer buying behavior. And also how these two factors make relationship on consumer buying behavior. It has also been found that the respondents were giving priority to price here in Pakistan, most of the respondents were price conscious, they want to buy as much as they can in a competitive and best available products with best price because there has been an unstable situation in Pakistan. The customer must be facilitated with some packages in products. To sum up, companies have to make a competitive price in stay in the market.

Limitation and Suggestions for Future Research

This study may help industries in Pakistan to focus on more on price and quality. The limitation of this study was conducted in the of major cities of Pakistan due to deficiency of time and resources others can conduct the research in other cities too on a bigger level. Inclusion of

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other variables like the role of after sales services may likewise prove to be significant in further research. The impact of these two constructs of consumer behavior also certifies further investigation and could significantly shape future markets in Pakistan. The results presented in this article also raise interesting issues for further research like after sales services of durable products.

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