The Study of Characteristics of Consumer Purchasing Private Brand Products at Large-Scale Mart

국내 대형마트의 유통업체 브랜드 상품 구매 소비자의 특성 분석에 관한 연구

As having the movement of developing private brand (PB) goods, domestic big retailers are facing up with new problems. Thus, it is required studies of PB products, and how consumers recognize PB products as a consideration commodity set. Also, it is worthy in order that it gives us the important meaning on the marketing strategy with focusing on evaluating the differences between customers buying PB grocery goods with respect to demographic characteristics and purchasing behaviors. PB has some advantages for customers and retailers. However, according to AC Nielson's report (2005), Asian and emerging market has 1/5 sales relatively to Western countries. But we can assume that the emerging market has the most potential growth through this result. As a result from several other studies, it becomes necessary to not only increase the rate of selling composition of PB product temporarily, but also analyze the characteristics of customers using big retailers and segmenting customer groups to make PB product as a consideration commodity set for them. In addition, it is needed to have a variety of acts of marketing. From studies related to PB, there is a prejudice - cheap products have low quality - but, evaluation by customers who have used those products shows neutral stand, and there is a study representing that it is the most important to accumulate the belief between the retailers selling PB products and consumers using those for the accurate evaluation and intention on purchasing. Also, by the result from analyzing the characteristics of customers buying PB products, we could assume that higher income and higher education level, more preference on PB products. Especially, according to TNS's research, the primary targets of PB product are 30's who seeks value for money and planned spending habits, and 40's who have teenager children, and are interested in encouraging themselves. This paper used Probit model to analyze the characteristics of consumers. This model helps us to analyze with the variables representing the demographic characteristics of consumers (gender, age, educational level, occupation, income level, living area), and variables related to purchasing behavior (visiting frequency on big retailers, the average amount that they pay for goods in there, and check-up which brand made those goods). The method we used in this study is by man to man interview and survey on-line with the rate of 89% and 11% in Seoul and Gyunggi Province, respectively, for about one month from the beginning of February, 2008. As a result of this, under the assumption that people buy PB products more as long as they go shopping more, it was not meaningful for target groups which we pointed out as frequently visiting customers to be. Although, we have expected women buy more PB products than men do, gender doesn't mean anything for the result. And, it has inferred that married people buy more PB goods than singles do. It was also meaningless with variables related to occupation. Because housewives are often exposed to any kind of supermarket than workers are, we could not get any relatives. Moreover, we couldn't proof that younger generation prefer big retailers more than older people who 50~60's. Education levels doesn't affect on the purchase of PB product as well. Related to living area, the result is statistically not similar as we expected whether living in Seoul or not. It shows there is no relationship with the preference on retail brands and PB products, and it is similar with the study researched by TNS(2008) that customers tend to buy PB product impulsively no matter which brand it is and where they are even though their shopping place is the big market where customers are often using. Variables on which we had meaningful results are income level and living place. That is, customers who have 3,000,000~6,000,000 WON every month on average are more willing to buy PB products than other customers whose income is over 6,000,000 WON, and residents not living in Seoul prefer PB goods than those who are living in Seoul. To explain more about what we got, if there is only one condition about customer's visiting frequency on big retails, we could come up with this result that more exposed to PB products, more purchasing frequency. Consequently, it brings the important insight that large retailers have to prepare something to make customers visit them often to increase selling rate of PB products. To demonstrate the result of analyzing more, what is more efficient variables are demographically including marital status, income level, and residential area to buy items that affect the PB products and could include the frequency of visiting large markets by the purchase habits. Specifically, then, married couples rather than singles, middle-income customers than high-income customers, and local residents not living in Seoul than customers in Seoul are more likely to purchase PB goods. In addition, as long as a customer visits two times more, then the purchasing rate of PB products is to increase over 5.3%. Therefore, it seems that retailers are better to make a shopping place as fun and comfortable places. With overwhelming the idea that PB products are just cheap, one-time purchase goods, it is needed to increase the loyalty on those goods like NB products, try to make PB products as a consideration products set, and occur to sustainable sales. Especially, as suggested by this paper, it seems like it strongly needs to identify the characteristics of customers who prefer PB, to segment those customers, and to select the main target, and to do positioning with well-planned marketing strategies. Then, it is able to give us a meaningful point on marketing strategy by developing the field of PB study, identifying the difference of life style and shopping habits of customers.

최근 대형마트를 중심으로 유통업자브랜드(PB) 상품의 확대가 이루어지고 있다. 대형마트는 소비자가 상품을 구입할 때 PB를 또 하나의 고려 상표군으로 인식하길 바라고 있지만, 소비자들의 반응은 여전히 PB상품에 대해 중립적인 입장이다. 즉 소비자마다 각기 다른 평가를 내리고 있다. 따라서 본 연구는 PB상품을 구매한 소비자들의 특성을 분석하여 PB상품 개발과 판매에 있어 마케팅적 시사점을 주고자 한다. 본 연구는 서울과 경기 지역에 있는 소비자 설문조사 자료를 이용하였으며 프로빗 모형을 이용하여 PB상품을 구매하는 소비자들의 특성을 분석하였다. 분석 결과 인구통계학적 특성으로는 결혼여부, 소득수준, 거주지역이 PB상품 구매에 영향을 미치는 요인으로 나타났으며, 구매특성으로는 대형마트 방문 빈도가 유의한 요인으로 나타났다. 구체적으로 살펴보면, 미혼자보다 기혼자가 PB상품을 구입할 확률이 더 높게 나타나, DM(Direct Mail)발송이나 핸드폰 SMS(Short Message Service) 발송 등 PB상품 판촉활동의 타겟팅에 있어 기혼자에 대한 비중을 높일 필요가 있을 것으로 보인다. 둘째, 소득수준과 관련해서는 고소득계층보다 중산층(월소득 301~600만원) 소비자들이, 서울지역보다는 지방 거주 소비자들이 PB상품 구매 확률이 높았다. 이러한 소비자들의 특성은 가격에 민감하기 때문에 소비자를 위한 추가 증정, 사은품 지급, 1+1행사 등을 강화할 필요가 있을 것으로 보인다. 셋째, 대형마트 방문 빈도가 월 2회 증가할 경우, PB상품을 구매할 확률이 5.3%이상 증가하는 것으로 나타나 소비자들의 내점빈도를 높일 수 있는 재미있는 매장 만들기, 찾아오는 서비스 등 다양한 집객 전략이 필요해 보인다. 결론적으로 PB상품이 단지 가격이 저렴한 일회성 구매 상품이라는 한계를 넘어 NB상품처럼 상품에 대한 로열티를 높이고 지속적 구매가 일어나도록 하기 위해서는 PB상품을 다른 제조업체 브랜드처럼 카테고리 내에서 하나의 고려 상품군(consideration commodity set)이 될 수 있도록 하는 노력이 필요하다.