Consumer awareness toward remanufactured parts and components: the case of the automotive industry in Sarawak

Abstract

The growth of the automotive industry in Sarawak although slow compared to other countries, but it is continuously particularly in remanufacturing sector that produces remanufactured parts and components. The main objective of conducting this study is to determine the influencing factor that influences consumer awareness toward remanufactured parts and components for the automotive industry in Sarawak. The independent variable for the study are education, policy, marketing strategy, and social influence, while the dependent variables for this study are consumer awareness toward remanufactured parts and components for the automotive industry in Sarawak. This research is aim to examine whether the influencing factor will give any effect toward the level of consumer awareness toward automotive remanufactured product in Sarawak. This research uses a qualitative approach. The qualitative approach that this study is using an in-depth interview method. A total of five companies and a total of five respondent was interviewed. This respondent consists of people that come from a company doing the remanufacturing process on automotive parts and components. The sample location for this research is in Sarawak only. The collected data from the interview are analyses using Atlas.ti. The findings show that most of the consumers of the companies have for remanufacturing sector are consumer that own business. Four out of five of the respondents claimed that they use Word of Mouth as their marketing strategy. Lastly, all of the respondents stated that they did not receive any kind of support or incentive from any government and non-government body. Therefore, it is shown that marketing strategy and social influence have influence consumer awareness toward remanufactured parts and components for the automotive industry. This study can assist policymakers to improve current policy, assist industry players to upgrade their marketing strategies, and provide useful literature material for the future researcher.