การศึกษาพฤติกรรมของสมาชิกที่มีต่อร้านสหกรณ์ในเขตกรุงเทพมหานคร พ.ศ.2523 / บุญช่วย วาณิชยชาติ = A study of the behavior of members of the cooperative stores in Bangkok Metropolitan area, 1980 / Boonchuay Wanichayachart
At the present, people in the Bangkok Metropolitan area are interested in setting up cooperative stores, with the principal objectives of providing goods and services for its member customers and helping them to maintain or increase their welfare. To meet with these objectives, there are many problems facing the general managers. The consumer research in an attempt to identify the problems and solutions to the problems would be helpful for the manager’s decision making. This study is conducted through field research. The personal interview with designed questionnaire was employed together with the researcher’s own observation. Pre-test of questionnaire was carried out through interview of 10 customers who shopped at Bangkhen Branch of the Pranakorn Cooperative Store. After the completion of questionnaire design, training of enumerators in conducting consumer interview was also carried out. The sampling location covers 8 branchs of the Pranakorn Cooperative Store, and 4 branchs of the Krungtep Cooperative Store. The random selection of sample customers was carried out in different times interval; i.e., different hour period and different day and week during 24 June – 23 July 1081. In total, five hundred member customers were interviewed. The sample size from each sampling location varies with the size of the members of each store. Editing of questionnaire was done before data tabulation and processing. The statistical analysis of the data was employed at later stage. The results of this study are summarized as follows. Most members of cooperative stores in the Bangkok Metropolitan area are female, married, aged between 26-35 years old and with education of or equivalent to Bachelor degree. By occupation, most members are government officers and workers of state enterprises. Their income level is higher than 4,000 baht per month. Their reason of becoming a member of the cooperative stores is to buy goods and services at fair price and expect to gain the returns to their purchases at the end of the fiscal year. Most member customers come to shop once a week, particularly during the weekend. The shopping of most members is well planned in advance for what items bought. A customer spends on average about half an hour and the value of purchased averages between 201-500 baht per one shopping. A test of relationship between the level of purchase value and the level of the customer’s income was also carried out. The result indicated that there is a highly positive relationship between the level of purchase and the level of customer’s income; i.e., the higher the customer’s income level, the higher the purchased value per one shopping. Most items purchased are located in the supermarket section which include foods and drinks, and are for family consumption. Most members expressed their interests in discount-priced items of the cooperative stores. But the associated factors for their buying of the discount-priced items are quality and the customers desire of the items. Other supplementary programs such as discount coupons lottery tickets or games did not seem to effectively increase sales. The majority of members said that some goods of the cooperative stores are priced higher than those in general stores. Therefore, whenever they desired that kind of goods they did not buy them from the cooperative stores, but from the other shops at lower prices. However, most members are in favour of the one price system since it is easier and time saving in their shopping. Regarding the quality, most members think that the cooperative stores provide goods with the same quality as those available elsewhere. However, some members think that the quality of goods in the cooperative stores is higher than those in other stores because they are fresh and better stored. Based on the above findings, it is suggested that : 1. The cooperative stores should be located near the residential areas or in the areas in which the offices of the government agencies or the state enterprises are already located. The areas with concentrated commercial activities are not appropriate for cooperative stores business because of the traffic congestion problem. 2. The cooperative stores should sell goods to members and non-members at slightly lower than the average market price to maintain low cost of living of their member customers. 3. Large-scale cooperative stores should set up their market research section and form research staff to do research and bring in suggestions to the general managers for more efficient operation and management. 4. Periodical seminar or workshops with an interest in identifying the problems and ways to improve the cooperative stores business should be organized among administrative personnel of the cooperative stores network. In addition, in-service training programs should be organized to improve work efficiency of personnel at all level.
