Impact of price

introduction on
Email usage
behaviour
Amit Panchagade 23NMP07
Ashish Kumar Mishra 23NMP09
Chandan Kumar 23NMP12
Gaurav Sinha 23NMP14
Manoj Kumar 23NMP18
Rahul Niranwal 23NMP23
 Problem Definition

Marketing Problem:
• What would be the impact on subscription of email
accounts across service provider after the price
introduction?
• What would be the determinants of subscription post
price introduction?
 Marketing Research Problem

Pre-Find out factors on the basis of which users select email

services.
Post-How the price introduction affects users selection criteria &
Retention of no of Email account.

• Number of email accounts are being held at present and change in

number of email accounts post price introduction?
• What factors determine the selection of email service in the present
context?
• How these factors get affected when price element is introduced?
• What is the demographic and psychographic profile of the users and if
there is any relationship between the user profile and changes in
selection criteria?
Approach
 Research Design

Step1-Exploratory Research
– Reasons
• To define the problem more precisely
• Gain insights for developing approach to the problem
– Method
• Qualitative Research using depth interviews with users
– Outcome
• Initial understanding of the users’ behaviour with regard to
selection criteria and impact of price element on these
criteria
• Better understanding of the problem and insights on
research questions
In-depth Interviews
 Research Design cont.

Step2-Causal Research
– Reason
• Concerns a cause (Price element) and its effect
– Method
• Experimental Design: One group pre-test post-test
design
– Outcome
• Cause and effect relationship between different
variables
 Research Design cont.

• Information needs
– User profile
– Usage patterns
• Selection criteria (pre-test & post-test)

• Data collection from primary sources

– Depth interviews
– Online survey

• Scaling techniques
– Itemized rating scale
 Research Design cont.

• Questionnaire development and pretesting

– Unstructured questions
• open ended questions
– Structured questions
• MCQs
• Rating questions
– 2 sections
• Pre-test
• Post-test
– Pre-testing among the group members
• Sampling techniques
– Non-probability: Judgemental Sampling
 Questionnaire Link: Questionnaire-Final.docx
 Data Analysis

Data Summarization/Basic data analysis:

Single variables:
 Mean
 Mode
 Median
Multiple variables:
 Factor analysis
Data Association:
 Cross tabulation
 Co-relation
 Hypothesis testing
 Pre No of EMAIL Accounts
Statistics
PRE NUMBER OF
PRE NUMBER OF ACTIVE EMAIL POST RETAIN EMAIL
EMAIL ACCOUNTS ACCOUNTS ACCOUNTS
N Valid 101 101 101
Missing 0 0 0
Mean 3.10 2.24 1.08
Pre-Post Email Account comparison
Hypothesis Test
 Hypothesis Test

On all other criteria – GUI, Reliability, Other Apps, Security, Features, Friends’
Preference, Brand, Spam Filtering, Desired User Name the difference is not significant
 % Drop

Gmail Yahoo Rediff Hotmail Indiatimes Others

% Drop 10% 73% 74% 74% 100% 63%

Factors
 Proximity Matrix – Co-relation between
Vectors (Similarity Matrix)

POST PRE POST

  PRE RATING RATING   RATING RATING
CRITERIA CRITERIA CRITERIA CRITERIA
GUI GUI SPEED SPEED
PRE RATING 1.000 .567 PRE RATING 1.000 .606
CRITERIA GUI CRITERIA SPEED
POST RATING .567 1.000 POST RATING .606 1.000
CRITERIA GUI CRITERIA SPEED

PRE POST
PRE RATING POST RATING
  RATING RATING   CRITERIA CRITERIA
CRITERIA CRITERIA
RELIABILITY RELIABILITY
SECURITY SECURITY
PRE RATING 1.000 .610
PRE RATING 1.000 .685
CRITERIA
CRITERIA
RELIABILITY
SECURITY
POST RATING .610 1.000
POST RATING .685 1.000
CRITERIA
CRITERIA
RELIABILITY
SECURITY

POST
PRE RATING RATING
  CRITERIA CRITERIA
OTHER OTHER
APPS APPS
PRE RATING 1.000 .526
CRITERIA OTHER
APPS
POST RATING .526 1.000
CRITERIA OTHER
APPS
 Proximity Matrix – Co-relation between
Vectors (Similarity Matrix)

PRE RATING POST RATING PRE RATING POST RATING

  CRITERIA CRITERIA   CRITERIA CRITERIA
FRIENDS FRIENDS FRIENDS FRIENDS
PREFERENCE PREFERENCE PREFERENCE PREFERENCE
PRE RATING 1.000 .655 PRE RATING 1.000 .655
CRITERIA FRIENDS CRITERIA FRIENDS
PREFERENCE PREFERENCE
POST RATING .655 1.000 POST RATING .655 1.000
CRITERIA FRIENDS CRITERIA FRIENDS
PREFERENCE PREFERENCE

PRE POST
POST RATING RATING
  PRE RATING RATING   CRITERIA CRITERIA
CRITERIA CRITERIA SPAM SPAM
FEATURE FEATURES FILTERING FILTERING
PRE RATING CRITERIA 1.000 .663 PRE RATING 1.000 .702
FEATURE CRITERIA SPAM
FILTERING
POST RATING .663 1.000 POST RATING .702 1.000
CRITERIA FEATURES CRITERIA SPAM
FILTERING

PRE RATING POST RATING

CRITERIA CRITERIA
  DESIRED USER DESIRED USER
NAME NAME
PRE RATING CRITERIA 1.000 .674
DESIRED USER NAME
POST RATING CRITERIA .674 1.000
DESIRED USER NAME
 Cross Tabulation: Retaining Email Accounts vs 1st
Preference

Post Email*POST_EMAIL_PREF1 Cross tabulation

POST SERVICE PROVIDER
PREFERENCE1 Total
Gmail Yahoo Hotmail Rediff Others

POST RETAIN SERVICE

Count 42 1 1 0 1 45
PROVIDER GMAIL

POST RETAIN SERVICE

Count 1 4 0 0 0 5
PROVIDER YAHOO
Retaining
POST RETAIN SERVICE
Email PROVIDER HOTMAIL
Count 0 0 2 0 1 3
Accounts
POST RETAIN SERVICE
Count 1 0 1 2 1 5
PROVIDER REDIFF

POST RETAIN SERVICE

Count 0 0 0 0 1 1
PROVIDER OTHERS

TotalCount 43 5 4 2 3 57
 Cross Tabulation: Reasons for multiple accounts

Pre Reason-Post Reason Cross tabulation

Reason for retaining more than 1
Account

POST REASONS Total

POST REASONS
FOR MORE1
FOR MORE1
DIFFERENT
BACKUP
PURPOSE

PRE REASONS MORE1

Count 3 5 8
INCIDENTAL

PRE REASONS MORE1 TRY OUT Count 7 4 11

Reason for PRE REASONS MORE1 STORAGE Count 5 6 11

more than 1 PRE REASONS MORE1 FRIENDS
Count 6 3 9
Account PREFERENCE
PRE REASONS MORE1 DIFFERENT
Count 7 14 21
PURPOSE
PRE REASONS MORE1 USER
Count 3 1 4
NAME
Total Count 31 33 64
 Factor Analysis : Pre-Test
Rotated Component Matrix
Component
1 2 3

PRE RATING CRITERIA RELIABILITY .879 -.105 .154

PRE RATING CRITERIA SPEED .807 -.120 .303

PRE RATING CRITERIA SECURITY .805 .032 .159

PRE RATING CRITERIA SPAM FILTERING .617 .535 -.161

PRE RATING CRITERIA OTHER APPS .393 .245 .083

PRE RATING CRITERIA FRIENDS
-.092 .721 .126
PREFERENCE
PRE RATING CRITERIA DESIRED USER
.250 .681 -.219
NAME
PRE RATING CRITERIA BRAND -.193 .636 .463
PRE RATING CRITERIA GUI .206 -.065 .771

PRE RATING CRITERIA FEATURE .386 .170 .588

Initial Eigen Values (Cumulative %) – 60.9% for 3 components (5

iterations)
 Factor Analysis : Post-Test
Rotated Component Matrix
Component
1 2 3
POST RATING CRITERIA RELIABILITY .881 -.027 .316

POST RATING CRITERIA SECURITY .808 .067 .294

POST RATING CRITERIA SPEED .765 .055 .377
POST RATING CRITERIA SPAM FILTERING .723 .399 -.166

POST RATING CRITERIA FEATURES .609 .361 .142

POST RATING CRITERIA OTHER APPS .448 .411 .368

POST RATING CRITERIA FRIENDS

-.031 .804 .120
PREFERENCE
POST RATING CRITERIA DESIRED USER NAME .260 .720 -.050
POST RATING CRITERIA BRAND .133 .689 .423
POST RATING CRITERIA GUI .155 .228 .859
POST RATING CRITERIA WIDELY CIRCULATED .363 .024 .763

Initial Eigen Values (Cumulative %) – 68.5% for 3 components (4

iterations)
 Observations

• Average Number of email account per user in free email scenario is 3.1

• Average Number of email account per user in paid email scenario is 1.08

• Distribution of Active email account per user is significant across genders in free
email scenario. However , in paid email scenario, this distribution is not
significant.

• Percentage Drop in Email subscription after introduction of price is only 10% for
Gmail. However, for all other services, the drop is more than 70%

• Speed, Security & Reliability are the top three priorities in both scenarios.

• Factor Analysis reveals that selection criteria can be broadly classified into three
factors – Operational Features, Marketing Aspects, Appearance aspects
• Price introduction will lead to reduction in the number of email accounts/per
user; most users would wish to retain only one email account.

• Gmail appears to be the most preferred email service provider and will be
least affected among all service providers in post-test scenario.

• Users are likely to retain email account/s (post-test) which they actively use
in pre-test scenario.

• Selection criteria are broadly classified into three factors – Operational

Features, Marketing Aspects, and Appearance. Users value Operational
Features - speed, security and reliability the most in post-test scenario.