Costumer’s Perception Of Prices On Necessities: A Case Study

A RESEARCH PAPER
Presented to the faculty of
DAVAO CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
DAVAO CITY

In a partial fulfillment for the requirement in Grade 11

By:

Giovanne Tabigne Chan

Robert Aque

Mary Sophie Mejasco

Janceejake Manzano Cabugatan

Mr. John Neil Solas

Research Adviser

January,2022
 The content of this chapter consists of the following: rationale, scope and delimitation,
purpose of the study, and scope and delimitation 

Introduction
Customer perception is how consumers view your brand and product. They have developed this
view as a result of each direct and indirect engagement they have had with your business.
Customer perception, according to Valarie A. Zeithaml (2014), is more than just whether customers
"like" you; it also encompasses the emotions your company arouses in them and any evocative
terms they might use to describe it. This is crucial since every decision costumer take is influenced
by how they view your company. A favorable customer experience can boost brand loyalty and
encourage recommendations. Consumers may employ informational signals to construct ideas
about products, according to Olson (1978), and task responses (such as choice or rating) may be
directly influenced by these mediating beliefs. Olson claims that these beliefs can fall into one of
two categories: descriptive, which restates the original information in more abstract terms, or
inferential, which draws conclusions about information that is missing from the environment.

The researcher's topic is important and highly questionable for a variety of reasons in business,
since it's important to know how customers perceive the cost of their essential demands.
Considering what the research revealed about Valarie A. Zeithaml(2014), the term "customer
perception" describes how the customer feels about your company or its goods. It encapsulates
how consumers feel about your brand, taking into account all of their direct and indirect interactions
with you. Your company can identify typical user pain points and enhance the customer experience
by tracking customer perception. For this reason, it is also helpful to realize that customer
perception is vital to discuss, regardless of whether it has a positive or negative effect on
businesses. According to research, consumers consider price as a quality indicator more often
when companies are unfamiliar than when they are familiar (Smith and Broome 1966; Stokes
1985). Research has also revealed that consumers choose more expensive goods when they
perceive a high danger of making a poor decision (Lambert 1972; Peterson and Wilson 1985;
Shapiro 1968, 1973).

The purpose of this study was to show how important customer perception is to business
owners and those looking to start one. It is very beneficial to understand how understanding your
customers may assist you in identifying any shortcomings in your operations. When a consumer
comes across a similar low-priced product or service from a different brand, they may see it as a
good deal or might perceive it as not worthy of their time or money. What consumers think about
your brand’s price is just as important as the actual price of that product. A buyer may sense a
company as "upscale" and assume that they have high prices, or they may see a brand as a
discount retailer whose prices are too high for its reputation. At times, consumers might also see
cheaper alternatives as inferior. It’s not easy for a brand to understand its customers’ perceptions
of the price vs. value it offers. Brands need a long-term, dynamic pricing strategy that matches the
demands and trends of a global, competitive market. And in order to drive sustainable growth, they
need to make smarter pricing and promotion decisions with insights into competitive pricing.

Base on the study provide by Valarie A. Zeithaml(2014) and Tariq, Nawaz, and Butt (2013),
The customer’s understanding of your business or products is known as "customer perception." It
summarizes how customers perceive your brand, as well as any and all interactions they have had
with your business, either directly or indirectly. Your business can identify common user pain points
and enhance the customer journey by monitoring customer perception. Value discernment is the
apparent worth of an item or administration in the buyer's brain. It is one of the most important
factors in a customer's decision to buy. The actual cost of production for the goods that consumers
purchase is not known to them. Instead, they decide which brands offer them the best value and
how much each product is worth to them internally before making a purchase. Brands frequently
employ marketing strategies to alter consumer perceptions of the brand's and its products' prices in
order to maintain a higher price while maintaining competitive pricing. There are a number of
questions related to the topic that the researcher selects, such as whether consumer perception
has a positive or negative impact on the company or product. Other questions may relate to the
product's quality or pricing. The researcher chose an interesting subject because of this, and
people from all around the world can benefit from it.

Although consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value are thought to be key determinants
of shopping behavior and product choice (Bishop 1984; Doyle 1984; Jacoby and Olson 1985;
Sawyer and Dickson 1984; Schlechter 1984), research on these ideas and their connections hasn't
yielded many definitive results. The definition and conception of research projects have received
criticism for being insufficient (Monroe and Krishnan 1985; Zeithaml 1983), the measurement
techniques have been condemned for being inconsistent, and the methodology has been critiqued
(Bowbrick 1982; Olson 1977; Peterson and Wilson 1985). Quality and worth are ambiguous and
elusive ideas that are frequently confused with imprecise descriptors like "goodness, or luxury, or
shininess, or weight," which poses a basic issue for research in the field (Crosby 1979).

Value and quality are difficult to distinguish from one another and from other comparable
categories like perceived worth and utility. Purchase intention is the implicit commitment made to
oneself to repurchase the good upon returning to the store (Fandos & Flavian, 2006; Halim &
Hameed, 2005). It is very important since businesses seek to raise sales of a particular product in
order to gain profits. The likelihood of making a purchase reflects customer retention. Brand image,
product quality, product knowledge, product involvement, product features, and brand loyalty are
some examples of brand functions that have a significant impact on customers' buy intentions.
In addition to demonstrating how the general public is persuaded to buy branded goods, this study
will also highlight key elements that are crucial for determining the customers' purchase intentions.
This study aids in classifying which of these elements have a substantial impact on consumers'
intention to make purchases.
 This study was carried out by Tariq, Nawaz, and Butt (2013) and contains a graph that displays
Purchase Intentions and Branding. Purchase intententions refers to a customer's willingness to
purchase a specific good or service. The dependent variable, purchase intention, is influenced by
both internal and external variables. An indicator of a participant's attitude toward making a
purchase or using a service is their purchase intentions. According to the graph's links between
purchasing intentions, each connection increases the probability that a customer will buy the
product and that their knowledge of it will help the business.

In reality, brand loyalty is demonstrated when customers consistently buy from a particular
brand. Customer satisfaction leads to loyalty; when people are happy with a brand's functions, they
become loyal to the brand, become unaffected by price, and express a strong desire to purchase
the product at any cost. Brand loyalty contributes to maximizing regional brand equity.
Consumers who are brand loyal exhibit particular behaviors, such as favorable sentiments about
the brand, indifference to the chosen brand's price, negative feelings when the preferred brand
abruptly disappears, and recommendations of the brand to others. In the end, brand loyalty has a
strong positive impact on the likelihood of making a purchase; the higher the brand loyalty, the
higher the likelihood of making a buy.

Customer perception has a wide-ranging effect on all business owners and entrepreneurs.
Customers' ratings of your prices for particular items may have an impact on your business
because if the price is higher, the customer might not be interested in buying it, and if the price is
lower, the customer might be interested in the product because people like to buy cheap stuff.
Customer impression is crucial to running a business because it does not only have positive effects
but also negative ones. Price is what is given up or sacrificed, in the eyes of the consumer, in order
to receive a good. Given that price is a "give" rather than a "get" component of the model, this
definition is consistent with Ahtola's (1984) argument against incorporating price as a lower level
attribute in multi attribute models. The view of price as a sacrifice is congruent with that of other
pricing researchers (Monroe and Krishnan 1985; Chapman 1986; Mazumdar 1986).

Receiving consumer feedback as an entrepreneur can have either beneficial or negative effects
on the company. It may also change the entrepreneur's perception of their ability to see things from
a variety of perspectives and determine what is best for the company. The customer should use the
appropriate word before providing feedback to the company because doing so could make the
business owner feel negatively.

The researcher confirms that the group can benefit from the study in both capacities: as a
business owner or entrepreneur and as a consumer. This is due to the fact that the study's main
focus was on customer perception, and customers may have benefited from it as a result of the
researcher asking them about how individuals felt about the prices of a specific product and
possibly requiring their response so that they could assist the entrepreneur.

Every customer has a unique view of the cost of the items they wish to purchase, making it
difficult to detect customer perceptions of prices. For this reason, researchers conducted this study
to gather some of the information required for this purpose. Based on the analysis and data
gathered, the researcher decided to conduct this study because there weren't enough findings in
the pertinent field. The research will therefore fill in knowledge gaps as well as other ones, such as
those identified in recent studies that produced contradictory results. 
 METHOD
In order to conduct the research, the researcher needed hundreds of respondents; this gave
them a wide range of options from which to choose. Since the questions in the survey and
interview were largely focused with the customer's perspective, the research chose customers as
its respondents since they would be the most straightforward to respond to. This was only available
to customers who had an understanding of prices, and by assisting them in clarifying their
understanding, it helped them decide what they required. This also has benefits for a large number
of companies and entrepreneurs.

We utilized stratified sampling because it was appropriate for our study and useful when a
community comprises a variety of subgroups and researchers want to be certain that the sample
includes them all. On the other hand, stratifies the population according to shared criteria that we
use in our data survey, such as age and gender. The researcher needed to look for guidelines in
order to have an easy way to conduct the study; doing so would help them do it properly and
minimize difficulty with the task; searching for articles would help the researcher have a great start
in the study and have support details to make it; for the respondents, it also benefited them by
knowing the answer of their perceptions, and it helped their understanding to the researcher to
have perspective to think critically. Both individuals and researchers will benefit from this method,
which supports the study.

Inclusion Criteria:
*Age 10 above.
*Male and Female.
*Individuals that purchase product.
*Individuals possess their own knowledge of prices.
Exclusion Criteria:
*Individuals who are just workers at the establishment.
*Not a Customer
*Individual who are just buying product but don’t have perception on it.
Withdrawal Criteria:
*If you don't wish to be interviewed, simply inform the researcher.

The study was conducted at Davao City National High School F. Torres Street. Davao City
National High School, also known locally as "City High", is the largest public school in Davao City
and one of the largest in the Davao Region, Philippines. This area is connected to the conduct of
our study which is all about the topic entitled "Customers' perceptions of prices on needs". While
other groups of senior high students are assigned to their different research topics. In this school it
helped us to carry out our research because of finding some related and similar topics through the
library.

Since the study is focused on customer perception, neither a personal interview nor an online
surveys were utilized because doing so would have allowed researchers to learn more about a
variety of topics, such as how other people will respond to the question, as well as this can help
researchers to fill some gaps in the research.

Since it's all about perception, interview is very helpful because through interviews we can
determine people's reaction and understanding. Using an interview is the best way to have an
accurate and thorough communication of ideas between you and the person from whom you're
gathering information.
When combined with the descriptive data from the executive and focus group interviews, the
observations and insights provide a framework for speculating about the concepts and their
relationships.
Its study comprises of the survey questionnaire and collected data by simple random sampling
from 197 university students in 2004 and after doing lot of tests and analysis the researcher
confirmed that there is a positive relationship between product quality and the consumer purchase
intention.
According to Tsiotsou (2005), studied the product involvement and overall satisfaction on
purchase intention. Its study comprises of the survey questionnaire and collected data by simple
random sampling from 197 university students in 2004 and confirmed that there is a positive
association of product involvement with the consumer purchase intention. This helped us in
developing our hypothesis.

According to Tariq, Nawaz, and Butt (2013), A cross-sectional study is a type of research design
in which data is gathered from numerous people at one time. As was used where the data is
gathered from many people. Moreover, it was published by TextRoad Publication. The term
"exploratory research" in this study refers to a type of research methodology that focuses on
examining understudied research topics. In order to fill the gap left by the absence of published
works at the time, Valarie A. Zeithaml (2014) conducted her own research. Furthermore, the
American Marketing Association received the data from in this study.

V. Zeithaml (2014) claims that in order to collect information for her study, she conducted
interviews with a wide range of businesses and people. In order to get more specific information
from the interview subjects and close any research gaps, she used open-ended questions. In order
to complete the research, she also obtained some material from previously published articles,
which helped her have a map for her journey. Due to this, the researcher used their methodology,
guidance, and clear direction to create this research.

The study intends to provide information on the cost of necessities around the world to
businesses, consumers, and other stakeholders. It instills a way of thinking about choosing the
right product every day, which aids businesses in identifying their weak points and bolstering them
in order to have long-term success. This has advantages on all sides, but it depends on whether
you consider its drawbacks to be disadvantages for the general public, who are given the initiative
to make wise decisions as co-consumers when purchasing necessities and save money at all
costs. Since prices are rising at this time, most of the responses researchers receive are focused
on inflation and why it occurred. Inflation primarily affects entrepreneurs because it makes it difficult
for them to attract customers, has a negative impact on their finances, and may even cause their
businesses to fail.

The researchers came up with the topic, but it was restricted to business, entrepreneurs, and
consumers' perceptions of product prices. Researchers play an important role in this position since
they want to help customers understand the costs of a certain product. The researchers also
conducted customer interviews to better understand their thoughts.

In order to perform the study, the researcher used Google to look for an article on the subject.
Additionally, the researcher spoke with customers in order to get their perspectives on the study's
objective. Due to the difficulty of the topic and the lack of recent works, the researcher found it
challenging to find a topic that was related. It was difficult for the study to analyze each
respondent's response since some respondents' answers to the same questions differed so widely
from one another.

Case studies were selected as the research approach because they have the ability to be utilized
to explain, analyze, evaluate, and comprehend a variety of aspects of a study issue. The study's
focus is on consumer perception. The researcher in this study employs this methodology to
evaluate data that was discovered by other researchers and supplied by the client in order to
progress their own research. Since it was Online Questionaire, the researcher needed to analyze
the data that the respondent provided in order to determine whether the individual was a customer
in order for the question to be answered. In order for the study to be successful and guarantee its
originality, the researcher must adopt a specific mindset. Additionally, in order to clarify the purpose
of the research.

Interviews with participants are necessary to obtain their perspectives for the study. This also
helps the researchers use the research effectively and carry out the study. Students utilize the
article to help them learn more and get depth so that they can conduct the study simply since the
researchers are students and need assistance because it is a difficult task. The writers who are
researching the same subject as the student's study, as well as those who took part in the interview
and assisted the researchers in achieving this goal, are appreciated by the researchers.
Additionally, this study can aid individuals who want to do future research using the same method.

The study's goal was to complete a study on consumer perception, which was challenging to
achieve but was nevertheless completed by the researcher, who is also grateful to the participants
and the authors who are reliable to the study. Analyzing the genuine responses from a few
respondents who gave a variety of answers to the research problem, some of which were negative,
is challenging because many of them are primarily related to the topic the researcher asked about.
Due to the researcher's explanation, some respondents were not pleased to learn that the price of
a certain product was rising because the price of the raw materials had also increased, and some
of the respondents were also experiencing financial difficulties.
 References
Muhammad Irfan Tariq , Muhammad Rafay Nawaz, Muhammad, Musarrat Nawaz, Hashim Awais
Butt (2013), Customer Perceptions about Branding and Purchase Intention: A Study of FMCG in an
Emerging Market, J. Basic. Appl. Sci. Res., 3(2)340-347, 2013

Valarie A. Zeithaml (2014), Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End
Model and Synthesis of Evidence, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1988), pp. 2-22,
20/11/2014 09:03

Moraga, E, T., Parraga, A, Z, v., Gonzalez, J, Z., (2008). Customer satisfaction and loyalty: start
with the product, culminate with with the brand, jornal of consumer marketing, 25(5), 302-313.

M. Joythi, H.Venkateswarlu (2020), PRICING STRATEGIES AND CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS –