A study on the impact of personal selling on consumer

purchasing behavior towards clothing.

Subject: Customer Insight and Relationship management

A Project Submitted to
Dr- Neha Verma

By: Group- 02
Renu Gupta
Nitin Singh
Yogesh Bachuwar
Aman Verma
Vedant Deshkar
Shimon Thakur
 Introduction
 Personal selling is a method of selling which a sales-representatives contacts directly
to the customer or consumer and sales-representatives are those who contribute on
implementing the selling disposition.
 Personal selling is defined as a face-to-face contact process between buyer and seller
to achieve planned goals, which are sales, and build long-standing relations with
consumers.
 In this method, direct selling can connect on how the people will avail with the face-
to-face way of selling. Direct selling is an effective way to build long-lasting
customer relationships and grow a flexible, low-cost business.
 On the other hand, the purchasing behaviour or widely known as consumer behaviour
is one of the factors that organizations of the business eyeing on planning sales force
program.
 Consumer behaviour refers to the selection, acquisition, and consumption of goods
and services to meet their needs.
 Though, consumer behaviour affects the way they avail the product or item they want
based on the factors that is inclined with the decision to buy like demographics,
cultural factors, societal factors, personal factors, and psychological factors.
 These factors might lead to the cause of having a decision on availing the product
from personal selling: in which using its direct method while the consumer possibly
interacted straightforwardly towards the salesperson, it is either to avail or not
accordingly.
 In this study, personal selling represents as a practice to encourage individuals to
make a purchase decision and that the personal attributes of a man with a high degree
of self-strength and confidence and the ability to convince and negotiate are
influential in retaining buyers.
 Literature Review
 According to Ziad, reveals that salespersons’ credibility, commitment to the promises,
patience in dealing with customers and their appearance have a great impact on
customer satisfaction. From those factors that affects how selling works when using a
personal selling method, retail merchants in direct sale stores have a fundamental role
in gaining customers, providing them with relevant information that affects their
buying decision.
 Kotler and Armstrong (as cited in Anyadighibe et al., 2014, p. 1699) defined personal
selling as “the presentation by the firm sales force for the purpose of making sales and
building customer relationship”. Furthermore, personal selling is defined as the
“seller’s face-to-face communication with one or more potential customers with the
intention of closing a deal”.
 Weitz and Castleberry (as cited in Murithi, 2015, p. 42) stated that personal selling is
“an interpersonal process whereby a seller tries to uncover and satisfy buyer’s needs
in a mutually long-term beneficial manner suitable for both parties”.
 According to Wiki (as cited in Campbell and Singh, 2019), salespeople play a key
role in showing different options available to customers at retail shops and also help
customers to choose the best option as per their needs. Nevertheless, personal selling
basically has two main roles: it is a part of the organization, and it is responsible for
customer satisfaction, and it is a part of communication mix, when it is responsible for
informing the buyer (Milisavijevic) (as cited in Bubnjevic, 2011).
 In addition, personal sale is a very effective factor in establishing contact between
salespersons and buyers in two directions. The customers can inquire and ask the
salespersons face-to-face questions. At the same time, they can discuss and reach a
clear understanding and take a proper buying decision, which encourages them to re-
deal. (Alsamydai & Yousif, 2010) To identify and know more about the impact of
personal sale on increasing sales volume from retail merchants to prospective
consumers.
 According to Ziad, reveals that salespersons’ credibility, commitment to the promises,
patience in dealing with customers and their appearance have a great impact on
customer satisfaction. From those factors that affects how selling works when using a
personal selling method, retail merchants in direct sale stores have a fundamental role
 in gaining customers, providing them with relevant information that affects their
buying decision.
 Roles of Personal Selling:
• Face-to-face contact
• Two-way communication
• Helps build long-term customer relations
• Highly effective for promotion
• Flexible
• Expensive

Figure 1. Buying behaviour study model.

 Objectives
The main objective of this research was to identify the impact of personal selling and
purchasing behaviour of consumers towards clothes. Personal selling and organizations’ staff
represent the link between the organization and consumers. Deficient personal selling will
reflect negatively on the performance of the organization and its ability to achieve set goals.
Given the above, this study aims to:

 Identify the impact of the characteristics of the salespersons on the purchasing

behavior of young consumers.
 Identify the impact of the presentation of the goods by salespersons on the purchasing
behavior of young consumers.
 Identify the impact of the characteristics of clothing stores and their location on the
purchasing behavior of consumers.
 Identify the impact of sales promotion by salespersons on the purchasing behavior of
young consumers.

Research Methodology
 The present study is based on the perceptions, buying behaviour and satisfaction of
the consumers in Indian market.
 Both the primary and secondary data collection methods were considered.
 The primary data was collected through google form.
 In addition, the researcher depended on designing a questionnaire composed of 13
questions that were implemented on a sample size of 101 people where 4 questions
were based on demographic and other 9 questions were based on the impact of
personal selling on purchasing behaviour towards clothes.
 The sample members (individuals) preferred to deal with specialized clothing stores
and dealt directly with salespersons. Secondary data was taken from Websites and
resources represented by the available literature.
 Collected data would be analysed with the help of Graphical representation, tables
and figures.
 Analysis & Interpretation

1) Age

From the above graphical representation, it seems that maximum respondents in the age of
20-25 years are more responding to survey as compared to the other age group.

2) Profession

The graphical representation of chart shows that 55.4% are students and others are doing their
job like client support officer, customer service IT, etc.
 3) Gender

From the above graphical representation, it seems that most of the female are buying their
clothes from retail shops but other side, male are also active to buy their clothes in retail
shops.

4) How often do you buy clothes?

From the above pie chart, 44.6% of respondents are buying their clothes in 6 months and
39.6% are buying their clothes very often and few of them are purchasing clothes in a year
which show that they are not meet contact frequently to sales representatives.
 5) Where do you go when you are looking for clothes?

From the graphical representation of chart, 51.5% of respondents are buying their clothes
from the retail clothing store and 34.7% of respondents are purchasing their clothes from both
stores i.e.- retail and online store. It seems that most of respondents are more comfortable
purchasing their clothes from the retail clothing shops.

6) Do sales representatives in clothes sales stores have sufficient

information about the commodities (goods) they are dealing with?
From the above chart, 55.4% of respondents are said YES that sales representatives have
sufficient information about the commodities (goods) which they are dealing with and 39.6%
of respondents are confused that sales representatives does have sufficient information or not.

7) Sales representatives present to you the clothes that motivates you

to buy?

From the pie chart, 75.2% of respondents are said that they are motivated to buy clothes , the way
sales representatives present clothes to the customers and other 24.8% of respondents said they are
not motivated to buy clothes the way sales representatives present clothes.

8) Sales representatives listen carefully to you so that he can present

the material suitable for you?
From the above table, it seems that 87.1% of respondents said sales representatives listen
very carefully to customers so that he can present the clothes as per the requirements of
customer.

9) Sales representatives play an important role to promote

commodities in retail stores?

On the basis of Pie chart, 53.5% of respondents said sales representatives play an
important role to promote goods in retail store and other feel that it is neutral neither play
important role to promote commodities.

10) Sales representatives play a major role in retail clothes sales

stores to attract buyer attention?
Based on chart, the impact of personal selling of personal representatives major role in retail
clothes sales store as per the 50.5% of the respondents and other respondents said it is neutral

11) Personal attitude of sales representatives play an important

role in influencing buying behaviour towards clothes?

From the above table, the result shows that buying behaviour towards clothes is affected by
salespersons’ personal characters, their way of presentation (demonstration), the direct
contact with the salesperson and what they provide as promotion activities.

12) Face to Face contact between sales representative and buyer

has an impact on buying behaviour towards clothes?
From the above tables the result shows that there is an impact of personal sales on customers buying
behaviour towards clothes, personal sales factors found in salespersons’ personal characters, the way
clothes are presented by salesperson and the way sales representatives contact with buyers have
impact on buying behaviour.

Conclusion And Suggestions

Conclusion:
 Understanding the variables that affect consumer behaviour and the decision-making
process is not just the work of big corporations but also of professionals seeking to
find the key areas of marketing studies.
 Personal selling has direct impact on the consumers’ buying behaviour which is an
important tool of marketing. Personal selling changes negative attitudes of customer
to positive ones.
 This study was conducted to find out the impact of personal selling on buying
behaviour. The study shows how personal selling affects the buying behaviour of
customers relating to clothes retail shops.
 From the study, it is determined that the salesperson is capable of changing
customers’ attitudes and ultimately the buying behaviour of the customers.
 Sales force would be the key factor for business survival, especially in a highly
competitive market.
 If firms want their profit to keep growing, they must rely on the salesperson to
promote products to the customers.
 Therefore, the salesperson must make an effort to collect information and identify
potential customers in order to reach the sales goals and obtain necessary profit for the
firm to survive.
 Significant relationship exists between effectiveness of salesmen and their sales
performance. Salesperson plays an important part in influencing new product
developments as they can gather ideas on product innovations through customers’
feedback.
 Prices of products could also be determined through salespersons as they closely deal
with customers. Therefore, it could be concluded that personal selling has an impact
on the buying behaviour of customers.
Recommendation:
 This study shows that there is no impact of presentation of commodities by
salesperson on buying behaviour. Therefore, it is recommended to work on the
training and qualification of salesperson and increase their capabilities to negotiate so
that they can deal appropriately with customers.
 The way the salesperson presents the products will often determine whether a
prospect buys from you or one of your competitors.
 A salesperson can discuss the benefits of the products rather than the features of it by
comparing with the competitors’ products. These skills of a salesperson can influence
the buying behaviour of customers.
 Furthermore, characteristics of clothes stores must be designed in such a way that
encourages impulse buying and enhances a customers’ curiosity towards products.
For instance, the window display of the cloth shop must be your invitation to the
passer-by.
 This will help to influence the buying behaviour and make potential customers to
stop or grab their attention. Moreover, promotion conducted by salespersons in
clothes sales stores should highlight why a particular cloth shop is the place to buy
dresses.
 Every customer desire to get something for low price. To meet this expectation of
customers, salespersons in clothes stores can approach more and more customers with
personalized offers instead of blanket promotions.
 Also, a salesperson can consider adopting different platforms to offer loyalty
programs. These methods in promotions can be utilized to raise the impact of
promotion conducted by salesperson in clothes sales stores on buying behaviour.
 It is also recommended to work on building salespersons’ awareness about the
importance of dealing honestly with customers because dishonesty may breach the
trust and drive customers to find another sales point for buying clothes.
 This may negatively affect the sales volume. A good salesperson needs to satisfy a
client’s requirements.
 Therefore, the business should make sure that the salespersons in their stores have
good listening skills to what each prospective customer is communicating. These
skills of salespersons can directly influence the buying behaviour.

Future of the study

 The data for the study was collected from 101 respondents of the selected location
who are in the age group of 20-30 years.
 Therefore, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to the customers of
different age groups as their view on the impact of personal selling technique on their
buying behaviour may be different.
 Future studies could replicate this limitation by selecting the sample from different
age groups of customers.
 Secondly, among many other dimensions, salesperson’s personal characteristics,
presentation of commodities by salesperson, characteristics of clothes sales stores and
promotion conducted by salesperson in clothes sales stores are only considered in this
study, and other methods under personal selling such as over the counter selling (OTC
selling) have not been considered for the study.
 Therefore, in future research studies, other dimensions can be considered under
personal selling to identify the impact of personal selling on buying behaviour.
 Moreover, the data was collected via one method, that is, survey strategy. Multiple
research methods could be utilized to gain more insights about the context.
 Finally, to increase the generalizability of the findings, the study can be expanded to
other retail sectors such as cosmetics, fast moving consumer goods or any other sector
within national boundaries as well as international contexts.
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 The_Impact_of_Personal_Selling_on_the_Purchasing_Behavior_towards_Clothes_A
_Case_Study_on_the_Youth_Category
 https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/ijmsjn/v8y2016i5p128-135.html

Questionnaire (Survey Form)

1. Name
2. Age
3. Gender
4. Profession
5. How often do you buy clothes?
6. Where do you go when you are looking for clothes?
7. Do sales representatives in clothes sales stores have sufficient information
about the commodities (goods) they are dealing with?
8. Sales representatives present to you the clothes that motivates you to buy?
9. Sales representatives listen carefully to you so that he can present the
material suitable for you?
10. Sales representatives play an important role to promote commodities in
retail stores?
11. Sales representatives play a major role in retail clothes sales stores to attract
buyer attention?
12. Personal attitude of sales representatives play an important role in
influencing buying behaviour towards clothes?
13. Face to Face contact between sales representative and buyer has an impact
on buying behaviour towards clothes?