Research Paper

Subject-

A study of customer satisfaction towards Chinese products in India

Abstract-

Chinese products, both industrial and consumer products have been popular in India for a long time now. Various consumer products like toys, electronic products, locks, mobiles, mobile accessories like chargers, batteries, etc have gained a sizeable market share in India. Industrial products like flat steel, mobile towers, telecom products, truck tyres are also popular in India. Indian consumers are buying Chinese products as they are different and less costly compared to similar Indian products. Also there is hardly any promotion of Chinese products in India.

It is high time to study the attitudes and perception of Indian consumers towards Chinese products in India. Because every now and then, there is news of Chinese products in the media. It is also necessary to understand why Indian consumer prefers Chinese products over some similar Indian products.

This study focuses on the satisfaction level of Indian consumers towards Chinese products. It studies the perception and attitudes of Indian consumers towards Chinese products. A survey was conducted in Jalgaon city of Maharashtra state to understand the attitude of Indian consumers towards Chinese products.

Key Words- Chinese products, consumer satisfaction, price, promotion

Introduction-

It is in the air that certain Chinese consumer and industrial products have captured a

major share of Indian market. Various consumer products like toys, electronic products,

locks, Umbrellas, leather products, batteries, bulbs, mobile phones and accessories etc. have

gained a sizeable market share in India. Indian consumers are buying these products as they

are different and less costly than similar Indian products.

Agra, which has an enormous leather industry catering to huge demand for footwear in India

for decades is today witnessing perhaps the toughest time since its existence due to challenge

faced by Chinese footwear. A large number of factories have been closed due to Chinese

footwear in India. Vijendra Singh, an employee in one of the firm said, “Earlier, we used to

work the whole year, but now we are left with just two and a half months of work.” Agra’s

cottage, small and medium scale footwear units use to manufacture over 1.5 Lakhs pairs of

shoes every day. Now they are manufacturing only 30-35% of it due to dumping of Chinese

footwear in India.

Indian toy industry is also under pressure due to import of cheap Chinese toys produced

mainly by Chinese Military Industrial Complex. In the last few years many small and

medium scale units manufacturing toys have been closed which has resulted in

unemployment to lakhs of workers pushing them into brink of starvation. Some Indian

companies have already shifted their production from India to China. Today Chinese toys

control 70% of the Indian market.

Glass industry in Firozabad has also met with the same faith. An estimated 480 small scale

manufacturing units were in operation producing glass beads, bulbs, tablewares, bangles etc.

Domestic sales were up and local manufacturers had their hands full of export orders.

Now in 2008, 300 glass units had been closed. Thousands of labourers are jobless as their

employers have gone bankrupt. Lokesh Aggarwal, a manufacturer said, “We used to make

3500000 glass shells for bulbs every day. My turnover was Rs.2.5 Crores a year. That

business is totally over.”

Now he is importing bulb shells and glass products from china and selling them in India.

Raghav Gupta, Managing Director of one of the export house said, “The glass industry is

suffering because it did not have the marketing skills to promote itself. It enjoyed a monopoly

for years but it could not leverage that advantage when competition came from china.

As India scale newer heights of consumption, larger sections of retail shelves are getting

filled by products from china, particularly in categories like toys, home decor items, luggage,

consumer electronics items, appliances, etc. Almost all the organised retailers are reporting

growth of Chinese products. Samar Shekawat, Vice President (Marketing), Spencers (RPG

Group) says, “Why should we go to china if the Indian manufacturers can give us the same or

better quality, variety and price?”.

It shows that Chinese products are popular in India. Customer satisfaction is one of the main

indicator of quality and service of any products. Because a consumer who actually uses a

product can only tell whether he is he is satisfied or not satisfied with the product.

Conceptual Framework-

Customer satisfaction is an important theoretical as well as practical issue for most marketers

and consumer researchers. Customer satisfaction can be considered the essence of success in

today’s highly competitive world. Thus the significance of customer satisfaction in strategy

development for a market oriented and customer focussed firm cannot be overstated.

Customer satisfaction is the feeling or attitude of a customer towards a product or service

after it has been used and is generally described as the full meeting of one’s expectations.

Customer satisfaction is a major outcome of marketing activity whereby it serves as a link

between the various stages of consumer buying behaviour. A study conducted by Levesque

and McDougall confirmed and reinforced the idea that unsatisfactory customer service leads

to drop in customer satisfaction and willingness to recommend the product service to a friend.

This would in turn lead to an increase in the rate of switching by customers. In his book

Measuring Customer Satisfaction; Bob Hayes has an example of a support survey based on

the quality requirements of availability, responsiveness, timeliness, completeness, and

professionalism. These general lists from the literature can be tailored to match the quality

requirements of a product or service.

There can be potentially many antecedents of customer satisfaction as the dimensions

underlying satisfaction judgements are global rather than specific. However, some argue that

customers develop norms for product performance based on general product experiences.

Researchers have established some of the key antecedents of customer satisfaction in retail

sector with respect to customer satisfaction in the competitive world of business. The bottom

line is that organisation will always be attentive to maximising profits and their success will

be determined by how they manage customer relationships. Marketing has taken some initial

steps to place the customer at the centre of its efforts, such as information sharing in sales

force automation and target market segmentation. Customer profitability management

requires a multilevel marketing return on investment analysis covering a series of marketing

activities that can be integrated and optimized for a customer segment.

Objectives of the study-

1) To study the satisfaction level of Indian consumer towards Chinese products.

2) To identify factors which are responsible for popularity of Chinese products in India.

Hypothesis of Study-

H01- Indian consumers are not satisfied with Chinese products

H02-Consumer buys Chinese products only because of their low price.

Methodology-

The study was based on primary data. The primary data was derived through survey method

employing Schedules. The actual questionnaire was prepared after a pilot study among 10

customers was done in Jalgaon and Dhule city of Maharashtra State in India. Sample size for

the study was 200 respondents. The sampling method used was random sampling. The

respondents were of diverse background like service, business, and agriculture. One criteria

that was considered was, the respondent should atleast be a graduate. A questionnaire was

prepared to conduct schedules on the field. The interview was conducted for consumers

buying Chinese toys and Chinese mobiles

Data Analysis and Interpretation-

Table 1 Demographic Profile of Consumers-

The demographic profile of the customers can be seen in Table 1.