Assessment of Customer Expectations and Preferences in Home and Office Furniture Purchase Process with Non-parametric Tests

This study aims to identify the expectations and preferences of consumers of home and office furniture using nonparametric tests. The statistical population consists of customers of the home and office wood furniture industry in Tehran and a stratified sampling method was used in this study. Cochran formula was used to determine the sample size. To determine the effective indicators, the researcher studied the available resources and the Van et al.’s model as the basic model and conducted a factor analysis to design the conceptual model of the research. Using a field research, the student t-test and Friedman test, she examined the relationship between consumer preferences and 5 factors and 17 subindices.

The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by the data obtained from 100 questionnaires using Cronbach's alpha. The results of descriptive statistics indicated that the mean of all the indices was at an average level. The minimum and maximum values and the standard deviation showed that there were no outliers. The results of inferential statistics in SPSS software indicated that as the significance level for Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was greater than 5%, all variables are assumed to be normally distributed. The results indicated a significant relationship between all indicators and consumer preferences regarding home and office furniture. The results of the one-sample t-test indicated that consumers consider corporate responsibility factors, product and vendor’s characteristics and internal factors above average while they consider environmental and safety factors at the average level in the purchase of home and office furniture. The results of the Friedman test indicated the priorities as follows: vendor’s characteristics, internal factors, corporate responsibility factors, product characteristics and safety and environmental characteristics.