Consumer demand for beverages in Pakistan

Abstract

This current research endeavors to study important factors having significant impact on consumer’s choice of beverages in Punjab province of Pakistan. Beverages in two major categories of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ have been studied to examine consumer consumption pattern. Data has been collected through interview from 80 respondents belonging to two major cities of Punjab, i.e. Lahore and Faisalabad, by incorporating stratified random sampling technique. These two cities of Punjab were selected because of big departmental stores opening like Metro Cash and Carry store, Al-Fateh and others. A pre tested and wellarranged questionnaire was used for data gathering from respondents. To estimate the outcome of factors affecting choices of consumers (demand function), multivariate analysis was incorporated. Results of this research showed that consumption pattern of cold beverages was affected significantly by consumer income, cold beverages prices, city selected for survey and number of adolescents in a family, whereas factors which affected the consumption of hot beverages were food expenditure, living area, marital status, income, working persons in a family, family size. Due to availability of copious brands of beverages, consumption is escalating with the passage of time and consumers are eager to pay but owing to high rates they are not relishing full taste of beverages. So, local industry should produce cost effective and quality drinks to enhance usage.