Abstract:
Advances in technology and the accompanying explosive growth in data are empowering global consumers like never before. To compete in this new era, marketers must understand how consumers make purchasing decisions and what factors influence their choices. The Mobile phones have today become a necessity item in human being life. It treated as a vital instrument carried by the individual to be informed and connected to the world. Since it is a very common device in Sri Lanka, marketers are trying to boost their mobile phone sales by using many communication tools. Especially they have used famous stars to communicate their massage to target consumers not directly but through the people who are favored by public. Reference group concept is very practical and common tool within the professional marketers. They have used them to communicate the massages indirectly to win over their competition. The present study explores the influence of reference group on consumer purchasing decision of mobile phones. The main objective of present study is to find which reference group mostly influence on consumer purchasing decision. The data were collected from the mobile phone users in Dehiattakandiya Divisional Secretariat. 100 Consumers (age limit between 20 and 30) were randomly selected for this study purpose. Reference group – family, friend, and media – is considered as independent variable and consumer purchasing decision is considered as dependent variable in this study. The hypotheses were tested through set data set. The results indicated that the friends in reference group are highly influenced on consumer purchasing decision of mobile phone than media and family.
