Consumer’s Tastes Preferences and Priorities for Pricey Durablesas Revealed by Actual Purchases in National Capital Region of Delhi
Authors: Goel Anshu 
Published: January 2017

especially the pricey consumer durables in a highly competitive
globalized Indian market. Conventional wisdom postulates that
price and income constraints are the major determinants of
consumers’/buyers’ choices and resultant purchase decisions.
Income constraint is overcome by access to finance, but prices
have no such options except the choice of inferior quality lower
priced goods/models. In fact, there is a wide range of options to
choose from and many white Goods have relatively cheaper
local brands available in the market. There exists highly marked
market segmentation based on product prices and paying
capacity of the buyers. Price constraint may constitute the
bottleneck for only buyers in one segment of the market. A
substantial proportion of low/moderate income group of buyers
also tend to use finance to overcome their income constraint in
order to buy high priced white consumer goods. The high income
upward mobile and trendsetting consumers choose pricey
options; they often go for newly produced goods on low scales
which enter the market for the first time and which command
extremely high prices. Greater the price of such goods, lower is
demand for the same and higher is their conspicuousness,
distinctiveness and snob value even among the higher income
peer groups (See, Baghati, Arvind, 2012, Shri Prakash, 2010,
and Shri Prakash, Shalini Sharma and Arvind Baghati, 2010).
Generally, such products as enter the market for the first time
embody entirely new designs and models while new designs and
new models of existing products command extremely high prices
due to production on a lower scale, high cost of innovation
embodied in the evolving of new product or designs and attractive
features, and high cost of market exploration and marketing
(Cf. Cramer, 1972). High price, in its turn, limits the market
size. This also adds to demonstration effect and snob value for
the owners. First group of buyers of such new market entrant
goods become the lead buyers for subsequent purchasers of
these goods; they in fact act as advertisers of such goods without
getting paid for it by the producers. They act as the leading
consumers and trend setters in society and activate urges in
others for the acquisition for these goods. This makes such
buyers/owners of such goods feel not to be a part of the crowd
and as ones who belong to exclusive class like the erstwhile
Maharajas and Nobabs.
Price is, however, also supposed to be a proxy of quality; higher
the price, greater is the perceived quality, and the snob or
demonstration value for the owners. All above facets reflect
psychological urges and drivers of motivation, which directly or
indirectly influences buyers’/consumers’ tastes and preferences.
Tastes and preferences have, however, remained hidden behind
the invisible curtain simply because these are neither observable
directly nor measurable quantitatively. Therefore, tastes and
preferences have generally been taken as given and fixed at the
given point in time, though no one questions the validity of the
hypothesis the tastes and preferences tend to change through
time in ad dynamically growing economy due to (i) increase in
incomes, (ii) rise in social status, (iii) upward movement in
occupational ladder, (iv) Increased level of education of the
younger members and their influence on purchase decisions of
the households, and (iv) continuous entry of new and better
products or models in the market. This study assumes that
observed buying behavior of purchasers/consumers reveal their
tastes and preferences. Under the given price and income
conditions confronting buyers/consumers at any given time, actual
purchases reflect the choices based on tastes and preferences;
tastes and preferences are the real drives of choices reflected by
actual purchases. For example, if m models of a pricey good are
available at Pm, m=1,2,…j,……. m. The following relation is
satisfied by the observed prices: P1 less than P2 less than P3 less than Pj>Pj+1>….>
Pm. Thus, Pj is the highest observed price at the given time. If we
observe one or some buyers opting for j-th model, he/she has
displayed his/her preference for model j. His tastes and
preferences afe defined by this choice. This notion of tastes and
preferences is based on Marshall’s adage that the ‘strength of’
abstract and unobservable factors and forces ‘such as motivation’
is defined by the outcome(s) that have emanated from the operative
influence of these factors on human behavior.
This paper explores the influence of tastes and preferences and
factors affecting the same on consumer’s choices involved in
purchase decisions of pricey white goods. The determinants of
tastes and preferences lie in the domain of psychological urges/
motivation/drivers. One may be motivated by the desire to move
up the social ladder by keeping up with peers or group leaders,
or to maintain the current status, or move from lower to higher
lifestyle, or to catch up with neighbors, friends and relatives.
Pushed by needling of spouse and children, taunts or sneering
by neighbors, friends, colleagues and/or desire to acquire snob
value or satisfy the urge to show off, and backed by purchasing
power people opt for the best available in the market. In some
cases, income constraint induces to opt for 2nd or 3rd best. But
psychological urges/drivers cannot be translated into actuality without the backing of adequate purchasing power and
willingness to part with the money required for the purchase of
a chosen good. This paper explores and examines these facets
of purchase behavior of consumers. The study is based on
primary data collected from households residing in National
capital region of Delhi. The sample comprises 600 respondents
through geographically stratified systematic random sampling
procedure. The study focuses on purchases related to White
goods. Both quantitative and non-parametric methods are used
in data analysis.