FACTORS AFFECTING THE PURCHASING OF HERBAL INHALER FROM THE SAIMA FARM WOMEN GROUP SMCE

This study aims at investigating factors affecting the decision making on purchasing herbal inhaler from the Saima Farm Women Group Small and Micro Community Enterprise. It also examines the attributes of Saima herbal inhaler that influence the purchasers’ decision for buying any herbal inhaler in recent 2 years (2016 – 2017). The target group is those who have bought herbal inhaler in recent 2 years (2016 – 2017), such target could bring us to obtain an exact information of preferable of herbal inhaler characteristics, and reasons for selecting herbal inhaler. Kano’s model is chosen for classifying product attributes according to Marketing Mix (4 P’s) and Cluster Analysis using 238 samples from questionnaire survey. From the survey results, consumers can be classified into 3 groups; Group one (1) Valuable Group: consumers in this group has no standard of buying, they are more interested in varieties of attributes. Hench, this consumer group likes to compare product benefits and believes that more is preferred to less. This group also likes unique design with ancient glass shape, convenient usage and handy. They believe that price reflects quality, and pay attention to sales promotion. Group two (2) Safety First Group: consumers in this group pay more attention to product safety data (e.g. label, expiry date). This group also likes unique design with ancient glass shape, new beneficial and trustable of products such as certificates, producer details, ingredients. They believe that price refer to quality, and prefer promotion of sales. And the last one, Group three (3) Usage Group: consumers in this group can purchase from any market. Their objective of usage is based on major beneficial of products. They do not focus on any other attributes, neither new or package or promotion or price like group one and group two. The consumers in group three will buy at reasonable prices in any market, but still looking for an expiry date of the product