eterminants of Family Life Cycle as Demographic Segmentation Practices on Consumer Choice of Ready to Wear Clothes in Kenya

Abstract

Segmentation is the division of a large market into smaller homogeneous market targets on the basis of common needs and/or similar lifestyles. One of the primary aims of segmenting a business sales programme is to focus on the subset of prospects that are mostly likely to purchase its offering. Segmenting on demographic variables involves dividing consumers with regard to their age, life cycle, income, and occupation. But despite the increase in the use of ready to wears clothes the sale of second-hand clothing called "mitumba," has also been on the rise. The study specifically focused on the influence of family life cycle on consumer choice of ready to wear clothes in Kenya. The study adopted market orientation theory, marketing mix. A descriptive survey was used to obtain in-depth information from respondents. Purposive sampling was used to select ready to wear shops from the three cities in Kenya namely Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. The study adopted Nassiuma’s formula to get the overall sample size of 83 respondents from ready to wear entrepreneurs’ shops from the three cities. Closed- ended questionnaire was used to collect data desirable for the study. Qualitative data was analysed by use of content analysis and presented in a prose form. On the other hand, Quantitative data was analysed by using of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. There was a positive significant relationship between family life cycle on consumer choice of ready to wear clothes as shown by a regression coefficient of 0.563. According to perceived values in ready to wear industry, different sets of products and different types of advertising strategies should be applied for people of different status.