21. Smartphone Product Appearance: What Drive Consumers’ Purchase Decision?

Product appearance has been recognized as one of the sources of competitive advantages of a company. This study was carried out to understand the roles of the product appearance in consumers’ buying decision of smartphone. Five different roles of product appearance, namely, aesthetic, symbolic, functional, ergonomic and attention drawing, were examined in this study. The smartphone brand tested in this study is the Samsung Galaxy series which is one of the most popular smartphone brands. One hundred fifty-seven responses of Samsung Galaxy users were gathered in this study, and the data were analysed using the analytic hierarchy process technique. The results showed that functionality of the smartphone acts as the most important criterion to the respondents in making their purchase. This was followed by product aesthetic and product ergonomics. Managerially, the findings of the study provide significant input to the smartphone producers in improving product design development. The study also offers the marketers useful information on the products’ selling points. Future research recommendations are highlighted.