Abstract :

Green products are presumed to be environmentally safe. Green products are also known as environmental safe products or sustainable products. Divergent aspect of green products includes ecology safer products, recyclable and biodegradable packing, energy efficient & better pollution controls. The threatening alarm of global warming pushes the corporate towards sharing the responsibility of making a safe environment for all by involving themselves as a part to the social contract. Green marketing is still in its infancy and a lot of research is to be done on green marketing to fully explore its potential. There are some suggestion that an organizations should implement for catering challenges of green marketing and successful exploitation of green marketing. Consumers’ level of awareness about green products is found to be high. Consumers are in still infant stage about green initiatives undertaken by various government and non-government agencies. We also found that the most known source of information for green products/practices as rated by consumers is Television followed by Newspaper. This article suggests that consumers are concerned about the state of environment and expect the organization to employ green practices towards the protection of environment. Hence customers are ready to buy green products even the price is high because of understanding environmental factors

Keywords :

1. Introduction

Green products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Green products is also known as environmental safe products or sustainable products. Divergent aspect of green products includes ecology safer products, recyclable and biodegradable packing, energy efficient & better pollution controls. Green products includes packing made from recycle paper, phosphate-free detergents, refilling containers for cleaning products and bottle using less plastic. Environmental issues have gained importance in business as well as in public life throughout the world. It is not like that a few leaders of different countries or few big renowned business houses are concerned about the day to day deterioration of oxygen level in our atmosphere but every common citizen of our country and the world is concerned about this common threat of global warming.

I.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM:
The threatening alarm of global warming pushes the corporate towards sharing the responsibility of making a safe environment for all by involving themselves as a part to the social contract. An invisible agreement lying between the societies (consumers) and the corporate (selling & manufacturers) consumers are the responsible protect our environment. This growing importance of an eco-friendly approach, has paved the way for a new dimension of marketing, Green marketing is still found primary level due to lack of awareness among consumers and wrong ideas about the green products. So, it is necessary to study the consumer awareness and attitudes about green products.

I.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: To identify the attitude of consumers towards green products.
To examine the factors influencing the consumers to purchase green products.
To examine whether the consumer thought to buy green products for save environment.
To offer concrete suggestions.

I.4 METHODOLOGY:
The research is undertaken on the basis of data collected from both primary & secondary data. The number of respondent 120 primary data was collected through interview schedule from the respondents who were people live in Tirunelveli district. Collection of secondary data was from the journals, books and websites I.5 STATISTICAL TOOLS USED:

The collection data were analyzed with the help of simple percentage analysis and chi-square test

I.6 GENDER WISE CLASSIFICATION
The following table explains the gender wise classification of the sample respondents.

The table I.6.6 shows that, 80 (66.7 percent) of the respondents are comparing the price at the time of purchase and 40 (33.3 percent) of the respondents are not comparing the price while purchasing.

I.7 FINDINGS OF THE STUDY:
Considering the importance of the study in the present context, the research findings were enumerated for the customers to make awareness about green products and to encourage to purchase green products.

Majority of the respondents are male (70%) because male are highly interested in purchasing green products than female.
Majority of the respondents come under the category of below25 years (33.3%) are purchasing green products because they aware about the environment.
The respondent of 33.3% has purchase green products for hygiene.
The respondents of 66.7% are comparing the price of the green products with non green products while purchasing

I.8 SUGGESTIONS:
Green products marketing is still in its infancy and a lot of research is to be done on green marketing to fully explore its potential. There are some suggestion that an organizations should implement for catering challenges of green products and successful exploitation of green products. Those are: Consumer needs to be made more aware about the merits of Green products. It is still a new concept for the masses. The consumer needs to be educated and made aware of the environmental threats. It should be made sure that the consumer is aware of and concerned about the issues that your product attempts to address. Green Marketing campaign and green advertising is good step toward it. Consumers must be motivated to switch brands or even pay a premium for the greener alternative.

I.9 CONCLUSION:
Consumers’ level of awareness about green products is found to be high. Consumers are in still infant stage about green initiatives undertaken by various government and non-government agencies. We also found that the most known source of information for green products/practices as rated by consumers is Television followed by Newspaper. Marketing implication for the same is that marketers can advertise in print as well as in electronic media for the maximum coverage and to make the customer aware about the green products. Respondents agreed on the fact that organizations manufacturing the green products are really concerned about the environmental safe . However the responses were on moderate positive level and we can conclude that consumers are not skeptic about green claims of the organizations. All respondents were of common opinion (high agreement) about the importance of green marketing practices. This suggests that consumers are concerned about the state of environment and expect the organization to employ green practices towards the protection of environment. Hence customers are ready to buy green products even the price is high because of understanding environmental factors.

References

1. Sharma D. D (2008), “Marketing Research: Principle Applicatiom & cases” N. Delhi, Sultan Chand & Sons
2. Rahul Singal Et.al Green Marketing : Challenges and opportunity , International Journal of innovation Engineering and technology, Vol II, Feb 2013, 470 -474.
3. .http://www.managementparadise.com
4. .http://en.wikipedia.org
5. http://www.encyclopedia.com.