THE BORROWING MOTIVES : A STUDY AMONG RETAIL CREDIT CUSTOMERS OF DIFFERENT LIFE CYCLE SEGMENTS IN INDIA

G. Ramasundaram; Aiswarya B

G. Ramasundaram Associate professor, MBA department, St Joseph’s college of engineering, Chennai
Aiswarya B Assistant professor, Department of management studies, Sathyabama University, Chennai.

Keywords: Retail, Customer, India

Abstract

The needs of people vary in different stages of family life cycle. Thus segmentation based on family life cycle stage play a
important role in devising marketing strategy to target the consumers with specialized products. Retail banking service
marketing is not an exception because people consume different retail products in different stages to accomplish
objectives of their lives. As competition among bankers is very tough to attract retail customers in the wake of financial
sector reforms, segmenting, targeting and positioning have become indispensable. Life cycle is an appropriate basis for
segmenting retail banking consumers, since availing of type of retail credit differs while people pass through various
stages of family lifecycle. This study has collected information from 895 retail credit customers and analyzed the
relationship between motives of borrowing credit and segments based on family life cycle. The findings reveal the
significant associations of motives with life cycle stage.