What Matters to a Buyer

One question in our survey required the respondent to give us

two reasons for choosing a different brand from the one they currently owned.

The decision-maker was given five options to choose from–Price, Quality,

Availability, Services/Support, and Reliability. Apart from data for specific

brands, we also got the overall data for specific product categories. This

helped us gain useful insights into market trends for some of the product

categories. They were useful in understanding what matters to the decision maker

when going for a particular brand. We didn’t analyze the trends for all

product categories–only those that showed a significant impact, or followed an

interesting pattern.

Quality has emerged as the respondents’ most important reason to shift to

another brand from the one they currently own. This was a rather surprising

result that came from our survey of both households

and establishments. The next big reason for switching a brand

was service/support. Availability was not a major concern for most respondents.

This means that the penetration level of IT has increased, which is good.

However, the high scores of quality and service/support point to the fact that

decision makers may not have had good experiences with the brands they currently

use. This has made them more conscious in their decision for the next purchase.

Going into specific product categories, office PCs, monitors,

and cellular phones gathered the maximum response in quality. The past year has

seen a sudden proliferation in the PC market. PC configurations have been going

wild with Intel changing its motherboard designs, and AMD catching up in the

Indian market. With so many PC vendors having thousands of configurations to

sell, there’s fierce competition in the office PC market. One vendor

introduces a new model in the market, and another vendor tops that with a better

configuration. With so many different choices available, it’s quite



logical for a buyer to become conscious about quality.

In last year’s survey, the home PC segment emerged as the

most price-sensitive category. This year, price is not a major issue, perhaps

due to the rapid decline in PC prices. This year, home users have also stressed

upon quality as the prime criterion for buying a PC. The other factor that

affects their buying decision came out to be reliability, which probably means a

more sturdy machine that crashes less, doesn’t require too much servicing, and

will not become obsolete in the next few years.

ISPs have really proliferated over the past year. This year,

quality and better service have been the two most important criteria for

choosing an ISP. Not surprising at all, considering the bandwidth crunch that

users have faced over the year. So, let’s hope there will be more bandwidth,

and faster and more stable connects.

Need for support and quality of service was the next

important factor for buyers in most product categories. This is the toughest job

for any vendor, as it’s very difficult to predict what the consumer expects in

terms of service and support. Reliability emerged as the next significant buying

factor for monitors, hard drives, and anti-virus software. As the first two are

a one-time purchase, it’s no wonder that they’re so important in the buyer’s

mind. Hard drives also have to be trusted with all the valuable data, so

reliability becomes important there. Service and support has also been rated

equally important for hard drives. As for anti-virus software, viruses have been

spreading like forest fires, especially over the past year. So, users need

anti-virus packages that they can rely upon for protection.

This year, price hasn’t been an important criterion for

choosing a product in most product categories. Maybe the buyer doesn’t mind

paying more, but getting a good product together with service/support and

reliability. Overall, it’s a good sign for the Indian IT industry.