FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMERS CHOICE: IN THE CASE OF GIFT REAL ESTATE

Abstract

An understanding of customer choice is essential in planning and programming the marketing system. The objective of this study is to determine the factors that affect customer choice in the case of Gift real estate, Addis Ababa. Quantitative approach is used in considering the research objective and to gain a better understanding about the research problem. In addition to this, the research conducts a cross sectional study thus; this study only investigate the phenomenon at a particular time. The researcher has studied the effect of price, quality, location, Brand and sales personnel on customer choice of a house. The theory explained various consumer behavior models and their arguments. This study adopted descriptive and explanatory design because it allows the collection of data at one point to the other. Using probability sampling technique like simple random sampling, the study sample in terms of the respondents covered randomly selected customers of Gift real estate real estate company and a sample of 384 was administered with the questionnaire and 87.5% response rate was achieved. Descriptive frequency and percentage have been conducted to explore the demographic characteristics of the target respondents. Using Linear Regression model, this research is useful to examine the relationship between the independent variables to the dependent variable (customer choice) after meeting all the given assumptions successfully. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 25 was used to generate the actual results. The result has identified that price, quality, location, brand and sales personnel as a basic influencing factors and examines each factor on the extent of their effect on customer choice while selection real estate. The researcher has concluded that customers mainly considered quality and location as a major factor on their house choice. Price and Brand has insignificant negative influence on customer choice. Additionally, the researcher has concluded that sales person’s credibility does not matter as of the quality and location for the real estate customers when they choose a company to buy a house. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended that the management team of the Gift real estate companies to give special attention for those variables that have major impact on customer choice.