The Indian consumer durables industry has witnessed a considerable change over the last few years. Changing lifestyle and higher disposable income coupled with boom in the real estate and housing industry and a surge in advertising have been instrumental in bringing about a sea change in the consumer behaviour pattern. Consumer durables involve any type of product purchased by consumers that is manufactured for long-term use. As opposed to many goods that are intended for consumption in short term, consumer durables are intended to endure regular usage for several years or longer before their replacement is required. Just about every household contains at least a few items that may be considered to be of consumer durable nature. With India being the second fastest growing economy having a huge consumer class, consumer durables have emerged as one of the fastest growing industries in India. Today consumers have many options and are much better equipped with information to choose from these available options. The consumer now exhibits a totally different behavior what they used to do in a regulated market. In the present context, the consumers get many information at hand due to the information revolution. Media (electronic and print), TV, Radio and satellite communication have made easy to consumers to choose the best products available in the market for their use. The marketers have to play a key role in attracting the potential buyers in favor of their products. The buying decision varies as per the information available with the women consumer before buying a particular product. Information available through Internet with the help of cable TV has created a new dimension in making decision before the buying any product. Thus, the decision of buyers depends a lot on the information available with the buyers. All the purchases made by a family follow a certain decision making process. The character and the extent of interaction between a husband and wife present an extremely important dimension in the decision making process. No sale can be effective unless a favorable decision is made by a buyer towards a particular product of a company. The dynamics of purchase decision making of husband/wife for different consumer non-durables, include, “wife-only”, “the wife more than the husband”, “both the husband and the wife exactly the

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purchase, who actually goes shopping are something that reveals the aspects of consumer behavior. This study aims to focus on consumer's behavior of women on durable goods. Today the Indian urban women is an active pattern in the family. She is the major factors in all purchase decisions of her family. She has acquired a place in the society by virtue of her education and employment. Indian manufacturers realized the need of her patronage and hence communicate with her and try to convince her through every possible media. They plan the marketing strategy to attract this segment, satisfy the needs and retain them. Marketing is seen as the whole business from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. The consumer is king in age of consumerism (McGuire, 2000). The term consumer behaviour defines as, state “the behaviour of consumers in deciding to buy or use or not to buy or use or dispose or not to dispose of the products which satisfy their needs”( Solomon and others, 2001). Moreover one of the key analyses under the heading “consumer behaviour” refers to the interaction between price changes of products and consumer demand too (http://www.bized.ac.uk/fme). It reflects in their search for different products of different level of their involvement required to purchase & consume. High involvement only requires in those products, which are of high price, complex features, large difference between options, high perceived risk, reflect the self-concept of the buyer. Looking at this classification of products by the consumption patterns, buying of the durable goods needs higher attention of consumers. While, durables goods are expected to last longer than three years. So, it is a product of high involvement for consumers. This characteristics of the consumer’s behaviour for durable goods, makes it a more suitable and appropriate behaviour to study. Last few years have witnessed of growing demands for different consumer products (Chunawalla, 2000). Increase in demand is a result of increase in income of the people and increase in discretionary income too. A rise in discretionary income results usually in an increased spending by consumer on those items that raise their living standards, Moreover, a trend for people to utilize their income for more comforts and facilities is also developing. Intense competition among the marketers of consumer durables. and the increasing awareness of consumers about their own needs, is making a major difference in marketing of consumer durables. In the context of the above scenario, it is interesting to study how the human beings i.e. consumers, satisfy their different non-basic needs. Moreover, it is interesting to study, why they buy a particular product, how they buy it, when they buy it, from where do they buy it, etc. A study has found that “many things that were considered as luxuries till about ten years ago have become necessities for most people today.” And in case of Consumer behaviour or buyer behaviour has attained increasing importance in a consumer oriented marketing planning and management. The study of consumer behaviour is an attempt to understand what the consumer want, why they want. Clear understanding of the buying behaviour of consumer has become a great necessity in modern marketing system, because success or failure ultimately depends upon the buying behaviour of the target customers considered individually or a group. Therefore in order to undertake the marketing programmed among different segment markets, the marketing management must find out the various factors that influences in buying decisions of the consumer. The subject of buying behaviuor is relatively a new discipline of the study of marketing. It has now become the central topic of modern marketing since the ultimate aim of marketing is consumer satisfaction and profit making. Consumer behaviour can be defined as “the decision-making process and physical activity involved in acquiring, evaluating, using and disposing of goods and services”. According to Webster, “Buying behaviour is all psychological, social and physical behaviour of potential customer as they become aware of evaluate purchase consume and tell other people about the product and services. In other words of Walter and Paul, “consumer behaviour is the process whereby individual decide what, when, how and from where to purchase goods and service”. Thus the buyer behaviour may be defined as that behaviuor exhibited by people in planning, purchasing and using economic goods and service in the satisfaction of their wants. Characteristics of Buyer Behaviour -

• Buyer behaviour comprise mental and physical activates of a buyer when he wants to buy goods and service to satisfy his needs

• It includes both visible and invisible of buyer. The visible activates refer to physical activity like actually going to the market place, buying the product and consuming them. The invisible activates on the other hand, refer to mental activates like thinking about the product, deciding to buy or not to buy that product, to buy one brand instead of another etc

 Buyer behaviuor is very complex and dynamic also. it is constantly changing requiring the marketing management fails to make such adjustments , it would certainly lose it market

also by outside or environmental factors such as family, social, groups, culture, status, positions, economic and business conditions. Faith Factors and Purchase Decision - Purchases are guided by the good faith of individuals in certain factors. It varies from product to product. Sometimes, decisions are taken on the basis of recommendations of friends in whom the purchases has good faith, sometimes it is based on the opinions of relatives, and sometimes it is based on the faith indicates who supplies the articles, company advertisements has its own role in buying decisions.

Decision to buy consumer durables is constrained by time factor. There is no immediate decision to buy of an article when decision is taken. The factors namely; the4 urgency of the article, level of income, the earnings of the members of the families, expected or unexpected monetary receipts in additions to regular receipts, credit facility from dealers, pressure from family members, demonstrations effects, easy installment facility, scarcity in future or probable rise in price due to inflation, tax etc., all these economic and social factors influence the buying behaviour of the consumer in relation to durables. Awareness of the Various Brands of Consumer Durables - Consumer durables are normally more valued, high priced products and not frequently purchased products. While purchasing these consumer durables brand awareness is one of the significant factor which provides assurance of quality, good performance and durability. The more awareness are familiarity of brands of the durables indicates that customers are more conscious and they well known about different company’s products.

Consumer Behavior assesses how this spending is distributed and the consumer behaviors that affect spending.Durable commodities prices paid by consumers decreased 3.3 percent in 2002, the largest calendar-year decrease since 1938, further it gets reduced more afterwards. On the other hand people were spending marginally for home appliances in 1999, in 2003 spending on technology goods/home appliances has touched 6.6% out of total spending of the Indian consumers’(Singhal, 2005, Kotler and others, 2007). The demand of home appliances has Although research on household technology is limited in the consumer literature, some key studies have been reported over the past few years. Typically, these studies have focused on the purchase decisions of families in regard to household technologies (e.g. kitchen appliances) and/or the use of technologies primarily as time saving devices. Gupta & Verma (2000) have done a study under convenience sampling of 50 household of New Delhi by questionnaire. It indicates that husband’s influence is considerably higher that the wives. Children also play an active role in brand selection of CTV. Moreover educated and workingwomen influence more than non-working and less educated. Venkteshwar and Rao (2000) have focused on tracing and identifying the elements in consumer decision-making; the research has studied 200 urban workingwomen belonging to different occupation, educational and income groups. Study observed television as a major source of information, for 65.5% consumers. While group forces affects 50% respondents. Surprisingly 45%-employed women still feel radio as a source of information. In purchase of consumer durables, 53% would decide for brand. Price is relatively more important factor and husband and wife take decision jointly. Kumar (2002) revealed that, the majority of consumers are highly enlightened and are concerned of quality of the products. He also revealed that, the consumers uniformly both in urban and rural areas, desire to have quality of the products at reasonable price and trust more the advice of the retailers. Aradhana Krishna (2003) viewed that buyers’ purchase behaviours can be influenced not only by the current prices of a product but also by those prices expect in the future. According to Schiffman & Kanuk, (2004), different views are considered for understanding consumer decision making process and behaviour. According to him first is „economic view‟. According to this view point consumers are facing imperfect competition in the market and it is expected from the consumers that they have full knowledge about the products in the market and would make the decision rationally. They can rank the positivity and negativity about the different alternative in the market and select the best alternative out of all. „Passive View‟. is totally opposite to economic view and according to this view consumers make irrational decision as they are very impatient and they easily get influenced by marketer

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products and services. GaurarJaiswal, Dr.PraveenSathu, ManitaMatharu, (2010) made an attempt in their study “Consumer Preferences towards Service Industry: A Factorial Study of Restaurants”, they suggest that payment options and behaviour of staff has emerged as the most important determinants of factor affecting selection of restaurant. They also suggest that, the restaurant management must focus on its ambience and food packaging. The behaviour of the staff should be polite so us to gain loyalty of consumer.

• To analyze the buying behaviour of women consumers in the area in relation to selected consumer durables.

• To study the awareness and impact on behaviour of various brands, impact of brand and seller’s reputation of the selected women consumer durables.

• To study the socio economic profile of the selected women consumers.

• To identify the factors influencing the women consumer's in the purchasing of durable goods.

• To examine the problem faced by the women while purchasing.

• To study the post purchase behaviour of women consumers of selected consumer durables.

In the beginning of the research, on pilot work to identify major areas of women consumer behavior in durable goods was carried out. It helps to take a lead to study women consumer's behavior for durable in study area. For this secondary data has carried out with the utilization of available books, business magazines, journals, newspapers, annual reports and newsletters of different companies, web sites etc. Also primary data were collected informally for the purpose of the pilot study. Consumer behavior or buyer behavior has attain increasing importance in a consumer oriented marketing planning and management. To study any aspects of consumer behavior, it is required to use a proper research method.

An exploratory study has been carried out to get clarity of objectives by interacting with customers. The underlying association between customer satisfaction and performance of various services.

The respondents were from household group. The sample was chosen on the basis of random sampling. The sample was drawn from age group of 25 to 65 years on assumption that they have the most spending power on durable goods. This group is very knowledgeable about comparative features, brands and price. They have all sorts of tools to gather information about the product, dealer, company and its reputation. They are receptive to new technology and know their requirements. They have been dealing with customer oriented society and are aware of their rights and market conditions. These customers are direct and/or indirect users for the product and services as they may have their parents, children, spouses, collogues and friends using these goods. This makes them a huge potential customer group. Thus marketers continuously make efforts to produce goods to satisfy their essentials and comforts.

In the present study, data was collected through a structured questionnaire. Pre testing of the questionnaire was done. For the study, a questionnaire containing various statements were specifically constructed. The questionnaire consisted of a five point Likert scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” with the middle of the scale identified by the response alternative “neither agree nor disagree”

The important factors which affected consumers were explored in this study. The subsequent list of attributes was given to these people used in the preliminary exploration and they were asked to suggest any changes to the list. On the basis of those responses, the language of some of the parameters was slightly modified and used in the final survey.

The data is tabulated and analyzed keeping in view the objectives. • Simple percentage technique has been used to analyze the responses. • Mean • Standard Deviation

The market for consumer durables is becoming more competitive now a day. Therefore, the producer of durable products should understand consumer interest much to find higher sale of their products. Overall, it is argued that the study of consumer behaviour is rapidly evolving as researchers recognize and implement new techniques and Trans disciplinary perspectives to understand the nature of purchase and consumption behaviour. This wider view attempts to study Consumer Behaviour: behaviour in the light of rapidly evolving lifestyles, values, priorities, and social contexts. Various theories on consumer research were not tested empirically until the middle twentieth century. Women, particularly women workforce are vital part of buying behaviour. It has been found that working women are more involved with the purchasing activities. They are more price conscious as compared to the non-working married women. It has also been found that working women are more Store loyal than non-working married women. In case working women are more quality conscious than non-working married women. But non-working unmarried women are quality conscious. This study also prevails that there is a significant difference in buying behaviour of working women depending on what type of organization they work. Women are apt to be more involved with purchasing than men, since women have traditionally been the family purchasing agents and perceive purchasing as being associated with their role in the family. Woman's role as the family pur- chasing agent, however, seems to be changing, due primarily to the large increase in the number of working women in recent decades. Therefore, working women has developed as an important segment for the marketers. Therefore, marketers should consider them with utmost importance.

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