Prialatha P and Malarmathi K (2011) in their study on factors influencing rural

consumer buying behaviour towards personal care products in Coimbatore

District among 100 customers found that quality was the highly influencing factor.
There was significant difference across respondents of varying education level
with regard to the influence of quality, nearness to selling point and retailer
factors. There was significant difference across age groups with regard to
package, habitual and retail factors. Female respondents were found to be more
influenced by `income’ factor. Respondents who were `single’ were found to be
more influenced by brand name than married respondents.
Ujwala B (2012) in her study on consumer buying behaviour of personal care
products in More super market, Chitoor district among 110 used chi-square
analysis and found that factors likes brand, price, quality ingredients, ease of use
and availability affected the buying decision of personal care products, 43% felt
that advertisement influenced purchasing decision, Majority of the respondents
preferred Head and shoulders, 38% preferred Santoor, 62% preferred Colgate,
33% bought products for price. Majority spent 10%-12% of their income on
personal care products>
Gabriela Mendieta, Home & Personal Care Analysis-The soap, bath and shower
market can expect to see growth in the next few years due to near universal
consumer usage of these products for hygiene maintenance along with a lack of
competitive alternatives. However, this market does have some issues it will need
to address: private level offering are slowly starting to grab market share and
sales from branded offering; consumer are expecting more from their soap
products ;and there is growing concern around the chemicals being used in
personal care offerings, new product benefits, and ways of helping consumers to
feel better about the products that they use.
Anju Thapa (2012) in his study on consumer switching behaviour- a study of
shampoo brands had found that out of 64 respondents from Jammu ,53.12% were
below 22 years, 93.75% used shampoos, 68.75% used it twice a week, 40.62%
bought shampoo thrice in a month, 53.12% used only one brand of shampoo, 75%
concentrated on important ingredients present in shampoo, 62.5% preferred
quality, 40.62% preferred healthy root and tips, 71.8% took decision by
themselves and 43.75% changed their brand due to advertisements.
Siddharth Shriram shimpi and Sinha (2013) in their study on consumer’s buying
behaviour and product attributes among 156 males in Pune City used factor
analysis which revealed six factors from rotated component matrix. Component 1
included texture of product, promised effect, previous usage experience and
suitability to skin type. Component 2 included packaging, ingredients, product and
innovativeness. The other components were packaging, advertising, store
location, manufacture’s credibility price, brand, quality and affordability. Syamala
G (2013) in her study on consumer behaviour towards
Prialatha and Malar Mathi, (2011)16 evaluated the various factors affecting the
rural consumer buying behavior towards personal care products and identified
the level of influence of various factors on the purchase of personal care products
by rural consumers of Coimbatore district. The Stratified Random Sampling
method was used to collect the data from 100 respondents. From the analysis, it
was found that there was a significant difference across age group of respondents
with regard to the influence of Package, Habitual and Retailer factors. It was
found that the variations across marital status of respondents, in case of brand
name, friends/social groups and income factors. The study showed that the rural
consumers were more concerned about the quality, brand name and brand
benefits of the personal care products purchased by them. The factors included
were related to the personal care brands and rural consumers. From the study, it
was evident that quality of personal care brands was given more emphasis and
the difference in educational level of respondents was significant in case of
certain factors namely quality, nearness to selling point and retailer
care products
Kumaravel and Vikkraman (2013) investigated the consumer behavior towards
FMCG products with reference to personal care products. 48 per cent of the
consumers are purchasing personal care at regular interval. 34 per cent of the
consumers are purchasing personal care products on necessity and 18 per cent of
the consumers are purchasing personal care products occasionally. In the price
range 42.5 per cent of the consumers are purchasing low priced brand.
Prialatha and Malar Mathi (2011)29 found that rural consumers were more
concerned about the quality, brand name and brand benefits of the personal care
products purchased by them. Further it was also found that once the rural
consumers found that certain brands were suitable to them, they did not change
it easily due to influence of friends / social group and lack of availability of their
usual brands. Friends / Social group were found to have considerable influence on
respondents who were single, as they involved in brand discussions to decide
their purchase. Package factor has considerable influence on younger
respondents as they preferred attractive package colors and design, while
illiterates often identified their brand with the color of the package rather than
the brand name.