Questionnaire Design

The design of the questionnaire will focus on two parts.

The first part which will be the central part will include about 10 questions in which the respondents will provide their opinions and the decisions on the cars they chose and the reason they prefer one car to the other.  There will be 3 multiple choice questions. The 10 questions are close-ended since they would take less time to answer and would also be easy to respond to. The approach would also help in the minimizing of errors and also make it easier to make comparison and tabulation analysis. Besides, the questionnaire will use the Linkert scaled question where the respondents were asked to rate the satisfaction towards a given car and the significance the place on easy factor in making any future purchases. The scale would range from 1 to 5 where 1 is very dissatisfied while 5 means very satisfied. The decision to use this scale is because it has been used by the researcher to analyze consumer attitudes for over three decades.

The second part of the questionnaire will focus on the demographic. At this stage, the respondent would be required to provide information about their income, gender, household, educational level, occupation, and employer category.

The behavior of car purchases

 Questionnaires

Introduction

I am researching cars for my research thesis. The questionnaire comprises of about 18 questions and would not take more than 15 minutes of your time. I am from () University.

1. Is there a car(s) in your family

Yes (I am the owner)/ belongs to a family member

Yes (It is a company vehicle)

No

2. What do you use the car for most of the time

Business

Personal use

Family use

3. What was the purchase price for the car? Indicated if it was brand new or second hand.
4. What Brand is your car

☐Volkswagen ☐       Volvo  ☐        Audi ☐ Chrysler ☐   Cherry

☐Mazda         ☒      Hyundai ☐       Toyota ☐Honda ☐    Lexus

☐ Ford            ☐      Mazda☐ Nissan

☐              Others

5. Indicate the time it took from initial idea to the time of purchasing of the car

☒Less than 2 weeks              ☐ 2 -4 weeks              ☐ 5 -12 weeks

☐ 12 – 36 weeks                     ☐ more than 36 weeks

 

 

6. How important was the decision to purchase the car

☐ Very unimportant               ☐ fairly unimportant              ☐ neither

☐ fairly important                  ☐ Very important

7. Did the family play any role in the purchase of the vehicle

☐ Agree                                 ☐ Disagree

8. What role did you play in the purchase of the car?

☐I make my personal decisions

☐I am part of making the decisions

☐I am one of the decisions makers, but I do not play a decisive role

☐The arrangements are made by other people

9. How are you involved in the process of buying a car and choosing the model?

The decision to by a new car

The budgeting dictions

The intimal choice of the brands

Contacting car dealers

Collection of information on the models and brands

Visiting dealers

Testing

Bargaining on the price

The final decision to by the car

 

 

Demographics

10. Gender

Male    Female

11. Age

☐ 19 years and below ☐20-29          ☐30-39           ☐40-49 ☐above 50

12. Could you provide your monthly household income ()

Bellow 10000              10000-19999               20000-29999               30000- 39999

40000-49999               above 50000

13. Enumerate the number of people that are in your household (refer to yourself and the ones you live with)

☐1                  ☐2                  ☐3                  ☐4                  ☐5                  ☐More than five

14. Please provide information about your current levels of education

☐Junior high school

☐Senior high school/technical/professional

☐College/university

☐Postgraduate

15. What is your current occupation level?

☐Unemployed

☐Employed full time

☐Employed part-time

☐Housewife

☐Student

☐Retired

 

 

 

10. What is the usage of the current

	Never	Less than 1/ week	1-2 weeks	3-4/week	Almost everyday
To work
Social activities
Shopping
Picking up family members
Business reception
Drive between cities

11. What your overall satisfaction with the current car

	Very Dissatisfied	Dissatisfied	Neither	Satisfied	Very satisfied
Overall

 

 

12. in regards to the following to the following to the following aspects, what is your satisfaction with the current car.

	Very Dissatisfied	Dissatisfied	Neither	Satisfied	Very satisfied
Value for money
Fuel consumption
Power
Comfort in riding
Performance
Interior and Equipment
Interior design
After sale maintenance
Environmental friendly
Brand
Safety

 

 

 

 

Results

The following part will be broken down into two pieces. The first part will discuss the demographics and the second part will look at the buyer’s decisions and the reason for the various buying choices.

Profile of the respondents

There were 120 male respondents and 80 female respondents that account for 60 percent for male respondents and 40 percent for the female respondents.  About the age of the respondents, 70 percent of the respondents were below the age of 50 years. Majority of the people were between the ages of 21 to 30 years. The result from the monthly income showed that about 70 percent of the respondents have a household income of below 20,000.

Further, the survey showed that there were 150 employed individuals with almost 80 percent of them being in full-time employment.

Car ownership

The survey also showed that almost all respondents had cars. The number of respondents that had cars was 160. Of the individual that had cars, 58 percent 95 out of the 160 had their cars. Twenty-four percent of the remaining individuals had their vehicles registered in company names, while the remaining 12 percent of the response with cars had them rejiggered with other family members.

In terms of car usage, 39 percent of the respondents use the car for personal needs, 35 percent use them for family purposes, 21 percent use them for business purposes. Besides, 0ver 95 percent of the respondents opted to buy new cars as opposes t about 5 percent that by second-hand vehicles.

In regards to the time, it takes for one to decide to purchase a ca, it emerged that most of the respondents took about 3 to 36 weeks to make the decisions on buying a car.

Most of the people decide to buy a car as essential or somewhat important. Of the respondents, about 65 percent thought it is totally important, while about 30 percent would think it not so important.

The relationship between the time of purchase and purchase time

In the study one thing seem to come out is that there is a close relationship between the time taken to buy care and the importance of the decision. In the cases were the choices so important so much time is also taken. Besides, in the cases where the division is so important, there is the involvement of the family members and other individuals.

In the study, there is also so much involvement of the individual the purchase process. About 89 percent of the participants are involved in the purchase divisions. Next individuals were included in the initial model and braid followed by the visiting of the dealers at 88 percent and finally the final division at 87 percent.

Satisfaction

The study sought to find out how satisfied individuals are with the current cars that they are using. The focus was on different characteristics of the vehicle as shown in the interview. The results show that the level of satisfaction is relatively high. About 60 percent of the respondents pointed out that there were reasonably satisfied with the current cars.

Besides, the study showed that the consumers were focused on the value of money in the cars that they were buying. Considering that most of the consumer are middle-class income earners, the cost for many was one of the essential aspects that made the deciding the car buy.

Conclusion/recommendations 

One thing that seems evident for the car consumer behavior in China is that most of the consumer was young people who are aged below the age of 50. The aspect that these people focused on when buying cars is the issue of value for money. Besides, these people buy cars for personal use. Therefore, the focus of an individual seeking to venture into this market is to provide cars that are good for personal use and are not expensive. This population is not focused so much on luxury but rather convenience.