Abstract
Positioning strategies designed by organizations in the automobile industry might fail when implemented if they are designed from the organization's perspective and not from the customers' perspective. These strategies are expected to be more successful if they are formulated by examining the perceptions of customers. The present study is an attempt in this direction. It presents the results of empirically based customer-derived positioning typology in the automobile industry. To conduct this study, a pool of generic attributes/statements was initially created with a literature review and then overlapping/duplicate attributes deleted. The remaining attributes were studied with reference to cars and overlapping attributes deleted. Then among 150 attributes, only the most dominating attributes were retained through a pilot survey. Less important and overlapping attributes/statements were deleted and some attributes that emerged during the pilot survey were added. Finally, 60 attributes were considered in the questionnaire for a field survey leading to the development of positioning typology in the automobile industry. Factor analysis was applied to analyze data. Results indicate eight positioning strategies/factors in the automobile industry. The reliability and internal consistency of these factors was checked with Cronzach's alpha and item total correlation.