Impact of Promotional Tools on Consumer Buying Behavior: A Case of FMCG Industry

Abstract

Instantaneous changes in the global socio-economic scenario due to rapid uncertainties and emerging technologies have framed a cutthroat competition between the market players across industries. This colossal change in business structures has altered the consumer demands and driven business focus to search for unique marketing tactics to attract, bring-in, and retain a larger customer pool through various promotional tools. The importance of unique marketing strategies for a business is undeniable as the exclusivity of marketing tools is the core idea to draw customer's attention towards the products. Marketers today are relentlessly trying to decipher new strategies through which changing customer demands can be catered to and seek innovative ideas to attain customer attention. This research project thus intends to test the effect of different promotional tools and their impacts on consumer buying behaviour. Every company hence tries to execute various forms of marketing tactics aimed to increase sales and to maximize business market share. Promotion is a mode of marketing that aspires to introduce and at the same time persuade consumers to buy the products offered by the business to enhance the sales volume and increase the firm’s profit margins. Hence, the purpose of this research study is to examine the impact of different promotion tools which include free samples, product price reductions, free coupons, and buy one get one free offer on consumer buying behaviour in the FMCG industry in Pakistan. This study was conducted in Karachi, and a total of 208 respondents were selected using the systematic random sampling technique. The data was collected through a self-administered structured questionnaire which was adapted from previous similar studies. Statistical tools were employed using SPSS and SmartPLS3 software to analyze the gathered data and find some meaningful results. The significance of this research is extensive as the key findings may help organizations devise appropriate promotional strategies to minimize their costs and maximize market share as well as profits. Moreover, the practical contributions of this research persist in the identification of sales promotion strategies that are pertinent to the management of clients in the FMCG market in Pakistan. Hence, this study will be beneficial for organizations to minimize their costs related to sales promotion and will provide the right promotional inducement, marketing strategies for businesses to increase sales by creating purchase behaviour practices for display.