Knowing consumer's behaviour, his/her preferences and reactions provides company with better chance to establish itself in trade. While doing research, it is very important to analyse and search for answers to questions why customers do the shopping, what they buy, when, where and how often they do the shopping. The decision to buy a product or service is influenced by many factors, including not only cultural, social, psychological but also personal factors. Sensory marketing itself is coming to the foreground and more and more people are realising its position. This document is dedicated to issue which is useful not only for companies but also for consumer himself. It deals with involvement of sensory and tries to clarify their importance in business communication. The aim of research document was evaluation of senses and their influence on consumer's behaviour in shopping area. The comparison of generations and their buying habits during shopping behaviour was also important. Primary data were gained through a questionnaire which was realised on sample of 312 respondents. The impact of sensory marketing was generally aimed on factors which influence consumers while doing shopping. In questionnaire, respondents were divided into three groups/generations according to their age (young, middle aged and elder). The questionnaire research confirmed that sight was the most influenced sense when doing shopping (62%). Irrational consumer's behaviour was also confirmed. There were some differences shown among generation groups. Research confirmed that the sensory perception of these generations is different. More assumptions were formulated for a deeper analysis and their relations were verified by means of statistical test (Pearson Chi-kvadrat goodness-to-fit test). On the basis of required results was confirmed that most of customers do not realise the impact of individual senses on shopping behaviour.

Rational and irrational consumer behavior has already been the subject of several studies. Although their attention was mostly focused on traditional brands, these studies and their conclusions may also serve as a model for private label research, which is now increasingly coming to the forefront. Private labels are gradually becoming an adequate purchase alternative to traditional brands. The aim of the paper was to find out the influence of packaging and chosen marketing communication tools, on consumer purchasing decisions in the dairy segment. An anonymous questionnaire survey was chosen as the main research method, where participated 1,116 respondents from all over Slovakia; which was subsequently supplemented by the blind test involving 20 respondents under the age of up to 25 years. Seven chocolate-flavored yogurt samples were examined in the blind test; while the samples were such traditional brands by traditional producers as well as private labels. Interestingly, identical products were investigated ”“ products from the traditional producer, both under its brand and under the retailer's private label. The results of our research proved some interesting findings ”“ more than 28% of respondents buy private label products regularly and more than 53% buy them sporadically; whereas respondents do not buy private labels, mainly because of their lack of interest to try something new, assuming poor product quality and inadequate price; they buy them mainly because of lower prices compared to traditional product brands, comparable quality to traditional brands and good experience; respondents perceive private labels as good products of adequate quality and private labels evoke that products are adequate quality at a reasonable price. Although most respondents have no opinion on the packaging of private label products, more than 31% of them consider their packaging as unattractive and almost 36% think that their packaging does not affect them, but the results of the blind test partially refused this opinion.

The aim of the present paper was to determine the Slovak consumer’s opinion about the purchase and quality level of agricultural and food products produced in the Slovak Republic, as well as to determine their knowledge and preference of the National Quality Label “Značka kvality SK”. As research methods, there have been used the methods of survey and structured questionnaire consisting of 22 questions. The total number of respondents was 2.808 randomly selected respondents from all over the Slovak Republic. For a deeper analysis of the obtained results, there have been set out nine hypothesis, which have been tested with the use of Pearson’s chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, Mann-Whitney U-Test and Cramer’s contingency coefficient. The results of the present paper show, that the knowledge and preference of higher quality food is between Slovak consumers on a pretty high level – more than 44 % respondents think that they buy higher quality products, more than 49 % of respondents think that the agricultural and food products produced in Slovak Republic are rather higher and higher quality, more than 58 % of respondents know the Quality Label “Značka kvality SK”, over 56 % of respondents could describe its logo, more than 60 % of them could spontaneously name five brands, respectively products labelled with this Quality Label and almost 50 % of respondents buy also the ecological products.

Seniors are usually perceived as an unattractive segment, mostly due to their limited spending power. In Slovakia, the number of seniors has continuously been increasing. The population has been growing older. In Europe, more than a quarter of the population is expected to be aged 65 years or older by 2050. That is the main reason why we have to understand the consumer behaviour and decision-making processes of senior consumers. The presented paper deals with the consumer behaviour of seniors on the Slovak market of cow’s milk since it is the most commonly consumed type of milk in Slovakia. Opinions of nutrition specialists differ on whether it is beneficial or not for humans to consume milk. However, in general, milk is considered to be an essential component of the diet not only for children but also for adults and especially for seniors because of its high nutrition value. Milk and dairy products should be a daily part of the seniors’ diet. Since older people no longer have the necessary enzyme (lactase) to break down milk sugar (lactose), it is recommended to consume milk products that no longer contain milk sugar, but that lactic acid is produced by fermentation. Sour milk products such as curd, yoghurt or kefir have a beneficial effect on stomach, intestines and also the immune system. Long-term insufficiency of calcium intake causes osteoporosis – a disease that manifests itself in bone loss and structural disorders. It leads to increased fracturing of the bones and thus an increased risk of health complications resulting from there. This study explores senior consumers’ preferences for milk and their decision-making strategies on the market of cow’s milk. The study is oriented primarily on visual cues catching the attention of consumers. Anonymous survey was conducted on a sample of 470 senior respondents (210 males and 260 females) aged 61 – 84. Using selected psychological tools and a short questionnaire it was found out that Slovak seniors prefer traditional motives and bright colours on the milk packaging, they highly prioritise price over quality of milk products and in comparison with young adults, they are loyal to chosen products or brands. Seniors who score higher on the scale of neuroticism personality trait state that the packaging of milk products is significant for their decisions. Seniors with higher emotional stability tend to experiment more on the market of milk. Keywords cow’s milk, seniors, consumer behaviour, packaging, persuading techniques.

No abstract