What to Offer to the Newly Emerged Super Consumers! A Multimethod Approach in the Context of Wealthy Single Urbanites (WSUs)

The work on consumers such as millennial, teenager, adolescents, high net worth individuals have occupied much space in the journals. Since the inception of the marketing concept, consumer behavior and preferences are examined using different research techniques. There is almost partial saturation in exploring what consumer prefer. However, with the change in the social setting and texture, the new super consumer generation is coming up with its significant impact on the existing market and marketing strategies. This new generation is wealthy single urbanites (WSU). They are having their existence since the recent decade. They are labeled as hardworking, partially selfish in securing their privacy, belief in thrill, party, cars and costly gadgets. As per the report of Nielsen, this 1 percent segment which is almost 1.3 billion people, fall under the age bracket of 28 years to 48 years, having income above 60,000 per month and have higher disposable income. Simultaneously save the significant amount for future needs. As they have higher disposable income, they spend on luxury, brands, hedonicity and lot more. They are the one staying alone in the metro cities due to their employment. WSUs are habitual of frequent shopping and highly brand sensitive and spend in buying the latest products addressing the daily needs as well as gives pleasure. They follow the concept of making life meaningful by leading it in their own style, instead of just fulfilling the functional needs of the daily life. Such life-style attracts marketers to explore more about WSUs for making their marketing strategies to be adjusted accordingly. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explore the preference of new super-consumers i.e. wealthy single urbanites (WSU), while selecting the bank for different the financial services. Moreover, the efforts are made to know what customized features or services WSU would prefer while availing the banking services. <br><br>The respondents were offered different combinations of facilities/features/attributes of bank and banking services. The self-administered questionnaire was used and the data were analyzed using conjoint analysis. The conjoint analysis was used to provide the real-buying scenario to the respondents. Moreover, the clustering was done based on the similarity of preferences of the respondents. Finally, the respondents were assessed using the Hofstede cultural dimensions scale for identifying their cultural orientation on six established parameters. A total of 479, wealthy single urbanites (WSU) having at least one active bank account, were included in the survey. The data were collected using a non-probability sampling technique, i.e. convenience sampling. The subjects were contacted in the evening hours in the famous shopping malls of the concerned areas. For ensuring the full participation of the participants, the responsibility of collecting the data was entrusted to the two relatively younger, well-groomed co-authors having good experience of survey or experimental research. The questionnaires were collected and processed for final scrutiny. For this purpose, the questionnaire was checked for its completeness, the impact of central tendency and consistency. After eliminating the unusable questionnaire, 419 duly filled questionnaires were considered for the study. <br><br>The corporate houses are always keen to explore and tap the opportunities coming in the way of increasing their market share. In this endeavor, companies spend the hefty amount to the research firms. However, such researches generally ask the public about their satisfaction level for a particular product or services. In this study, the finding suggested the three different clusters in which the WSU can be divided further for better service offerings. Moreover, the facilities/features/attributes preferred by the respondents were given the relative ranking, which may further help the management in deciding the priority while exerting the marketing efforts. At last, the consumers were categorized based on their scores on Hofstede cultural scale (HSC), based on the score the employees and the management may interact accordingly as well as offer the personalized products and financial services in more effective manner. The future of the market lies in catering to the need of such a specialized segment of different customer class. In this context, the WSUs are advised to be dealt with some informal and funky setup. Moreover, the products having high returns must be advised. The above discourse helps the corporates to re-examine their existing marketing strategies and to prepare themselves in making WSUs feel delighted. <br><br>This study contributes to the academic body of knowledge by providing the mechanism of using the Hofstede cultural dimensions model for providing different services and offers to the bank customers i.e. wealthy single urbanites (WSU). Moreover, the preference of WSUs while selecting a bank were also explored. However, like other studies, this study is also not free from certain limitations. The first limitation is the sampling technique employed, that makes the results less generalizable. Second, the participants were With regard to the implications, this paper facilitates the bank management and marketing division in keeping the consideration of customers’ particular cultural orientation as well as their preference criteria. While the banks can continue with its routine dealing, they may initiate the obtained findings in dealing the WSUs for increasing their market share and profitability. <br><br>As per the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first dealing with the consumer preference of wealthy single urbanites (WSUs) for catering their needs and making them feel delighted. This paper shed light on the different parameters of selection of any bank or banking services. Moreover, it conceives the idea of offering different customized products/services based on the Hofstede six cultural dimensions. Therefore, the application conjoint analysis and Hofstede cultural dimensions in the context of WSUs make this piece worth plugging the gap by catering to the aforesaid segment of consumers.