| Pub. Date | : Nov, 2020 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of Marketing Management |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJMM21120 |
| Author Name | : M S A Azeez and W A M I Abeyratna |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Marketing |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 20 |
Personal selling and buying behavior are areas of interest in the global marketing context. Businesses need to identify the correct techniques for personal selling with the aim of influencing consumers' buying behavior. The main objective of this study is to identify the impact of personal selling on buying behavior. The study has been carried out with special reference to clothing stores in Sri Lanka. The impact of personal selling on buying behavior is identified under four dimensions, namely, salespersons' personal characteristics, presentation of commodities (goods) by salespersons, characteristics of clothing sale stores and promotion conducted by the salespersons in clothing sale stores. For this study, 322 undergraduate students were selected as the sample using the simple random sampling technique. Furthermore, SPSS 25 version was used to analyze the data. Regression analysis was utilized to test the hypotheses of the study. The results of the study found that there is a significant positive impact of salespersons' personal characteristics, characteristics of clothing sale stores and promotion conducted by salesperson in clothing sale stores on the buying behavior. However, no impact of presentation of commodities (goods) by the salespersons on buying behavior has been found.
Businesses that are successful in their marketing activities are those that are able to determine the factors that affect the development of marketing strategies which enable them to reach the target consumers through the process of personal selling (Yousif, 2016). Personal selling is "the personal presentation by the firm's sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationship" (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013). Personal selling is one part of a company's promotion mix, along with advertising, sales promotion and public relations. The main reason which makes personal selling different from other methods of selling is that the salesperson conducts business with the customer in person (Okere, 2008). In addition, personal selling allows the salesperson to target the message specifically to the audience and receive immediate feedback. In this way, it is more precise than other forms of promotion and it often has a greater persuasive impact (Okere, 2008). Moreover, personal selling can be an important source of marketing information. The salesperson may learn about competitors' products, for example, or