The Festive Marketplace Issues - Essay Example

The Festival Marketplace Consumers are a really dynamic lot due to there ever changing tastes and preferences. The primary success of a business is based on its ability to meet the demands and needs of its customers. In this case, the festival marketplace is our business line of concern. A festival marketplace would generally offer international food courts and banks, nightlife, special retail shop and the world’s major restaurants. Major festival marketplaces are located downtown and this therefore contradicts the ideology that downtown is unhygienic area and unsecure for investment. Risk taking being the major aspect in business, the trend of investing downtown for businesses that took the risk has actually guaranteed them their success. This success is also attributed to its ample parking space and accessible location (Schupp, 2005). Festival marketplaces’ main concern is their customers, so understanding consumer needs and behavior so as to coop with their ever changing trends is actually necessary. For this kind of business to be privileged in the human heart, then it has to consider the following factors: high quality goods and services and that’s what customers mainly go for, fairly priced goods and services, it should also offer a variety of goods and services so as to offer customers a wide collection to choose from. Festival marketplaces have actually succeeded in achieving most of this vital factor. However, understanding consumer behavior is a difficult task. I said difficult and not impossible. It has to start with market research. This will enable the marketplace to address issues from its consumers directly. Businesses must at all-time strive to be ‘human era’ oriented so as to win bias among the customers in the market. Festival marketplaces have wholly embraced the idea of openness, honesty, being empathetic and exciting. This is an exact illustration of a ‘human era’ oriented firm. This achievement has been through events like; monthly gift card drawing, holding free workshops and offering a ‘thank you’ to the community and its own staff (Blythe, 2008). Moreover, rising to levels that most festival marketplaces have managed to reach is a hectic transition that involves much hard work and devotion of its staff. However, there are easy procedures and strategies for getting to the top of your business line without necessarily having to wait for decades for the transition to occur. Business favors ‘smart’ people whose ideologies and actions are not limited or rather confined to a box. Festival marketplaces have a diverse capital base ranging from holding cooking competitions and demos to selling housewares. Festival marketplace, over the years have succeeded in touching consumers soft spots, this has been achieved by means of addressing consumer issues out of the business scoop. For instance, a festival marketplace can hold free workshops on a variety of topics that are relevant to the consumers. For example a health workshop, addressing a current outbreak that is threatening the lives of the public could be held. The fact that the public is not charged to attend this workshop implies that the festival is concern with the interests of the public. Additional captivating quotes could also be incorporated to the workshop’s theme: ‘improving your health together.’ Currently, trends such as treatment of the public as stakeholders rather than mere customers improve the performance of this line of business. For instance, giving a listening ear and a cordial shoulder to the public and listening to their plié brands the marketplace long-term benefits as far as their sales volume is concern (Upper Canada College, 2013). The safety of the public and their individual property is guaranteed by the festival market place by formulation of lost and found services. This is a service whereby missing items are reported alongside picked items. This is an implication that not only is this businesses concern about maximizing their sales volume but also ensuring that customers correlate and thus bringing out the humane in them. Therefore, it is significant social center that is not only devoted to making profits but also acting as unifying factor. Festival marketplaces are coming into a realization that they should cater for both healthy and disabled consumers. Therefore, services that enable easy accessibility of disabled individuals are trending to enable these market places to be health bias free. For instance, for the convenience of lame people alongside making their shopping experiences memorably enjoyable, confortable wheelchairs are gladly catered for by the management (Lange, 2009). In addition, tours conducted in the festival marketplaces are becoming user friendly due to the introduction of free lunch for group tour members. The key idea in offering these activities is to make the marketplace user friendly alongside increasing the sales volume. Therefore, this also illustrates that festival marketplaces are a ‘human era’ business organization. Marketplaces have introduced a new trend whereby, ‘fortress behavior’ has been eradicated. The tendency of sending mails to consumers with a ‘don’t reply’ command has been discarded for the benefit of the business. Customers wish to make inquiries and ask questions in regard to a certain product, so barring this communication would create distrust among the consumers on the product. It is benefiting to let customers interact with the business at personal level because this will enable the business to identify necessary adjustments to make so as to increase its performance in the market. If a consumer makes a suggestion and it is gladly embraced by the firm, then this will give the consumer a sense of belonging and he or she will think so highly of himself. Moreover, the consumer is also likely to recommend the firm to his workmates, peers and other social communities that he belongs to. This therefore does more good than harm to the business. I admit that businesses as large as the festival marketplaces are not flexible to change as a compared to small businesses. But difficulty doesn’t mean impossibility, therefore consumer friendly services may be introduced with much strain to the business but it is surely worth the strain. A festival marketplace should strive to achieve a friendly outlook otherwise it is bound to lose its grip on the market control. This is because such trends are being embraced by other firms therefore one that doesn’t falls out of the competition. This however, doesn’t mean that a business should be the customer’s greatest friend, but it should operate in a manner that makes other firms uncomfortable and this is basically staying ahead of the competition (Maitland, 1990). Market research is a fundamental aspect of guaranteeing business success. It might have been mentioned earlier in this paper but it is definitely worth an insight. Market research is basically a study on the market gaps and opportunities conducted by a certain firm so as to establish trending consumer behaviors and current consumer tastes and preferences. Market research on the product performance or the firm’s performance enables the firm to identify certain realities in the market today. For instance, what the public thinks about it and out of ten customers, how many would opt to buy from this business and not its competitors. Therefore, this research gives festival marketplace alternatives to adjust factors like: improvement of quality, reduction of price and stock a product that is desired but not currently stocked. Market research also acquaints the festival marketplace to the cultural believes of the community around. Therefore, this ensures that the festival marketplace operation is not offensive to the people around. Once the customers’ culture is incorporated to the operation of the business, then that would brand it the business of the people with a friendly outlook. These impacts positively on the sales volume and profits earned annually (Lange, 2009). However, it is important that businesses determine the behavior of its consumers. Consumer behavior is the decision processes of the people involved in purchasing of goods and services. The wide market attained by festival marketplace is obviously attributed to certain positive responses to their consumers’ behavior (Hoyer & Maclnnis, 2008). It starts by determining why buyers make the purchases and what factors are influencing them to do so. A more satisfying market procedure employed by festival marketplaces attribute to their success. A buyer-conducive market strategy should be used. The following are essential as far as consumer behavior is concern: Firstly, creation of problem awareness is the preceding step. The festival marketplace must evaluate the difference between goods and services that it is offering and the desired ones. For instance, the business should appeal for the necessity of a certain product. For example, in a jigger invaded community, the business should appeal for the necessity of shoes and drugs that carb jigger invasion. Secondly, the festival marketplace conducts information search on the market. a good information search leaves a business with alternatives. For instance, want shoes? Then which type of shoes is best for the situation? Closed shoes or open shoes? Thirdly, evaluation of the alternatives provided by the search information is important. A proper evaluation method should be employed so as to determine features that the buyers desire and those that they don’t. Such alternatives, if properly evaluated and taken into keen consideration may result in production of goods that well satisfy consumer wants (Lange, 2009). However, consumers’ decision to make purchases is determined by certain factors which include: personal factors, physiological factors and social factors. Consumers’ buying behavior can be determined by his unique taste, gender, financial status and age. It is impossible to carter for each consumer’s need but seeking an intermediate is possible. The festive marketplace being comprised of various individual businesses seeks to determine what this intermediate and channels them to businesses concern so as to maximize its sales. A consumer buying behavior can also be determined by physiological factors which include: ones’ inner drive toward meeting and achieving certain goals and then his perception on the product is also an influencing factor (Wright, 2006). Therefore, the festive marketplace strives to portray a friendly outlook so as the customers could have a perception bias towards it. Festival marketplace tries to entice its customers by holding various monthly gift drawing competitions, free workshops on vital health matters and making it accessible to everyone, whether disabled or healthy so as to achieve consumers trust and so that they could have a positive attitude towards the business (The Annual Arizona, 2014). Attitude is a vital aspect of consumer behavior. Therefore, a business should at all times maintain a good image so as to succeed in whichever line of operation. Lifestyle also influences consumer buying behavior. It is vital that the business should understand the lifestyle of its consumers. Festival marketplace carries out market research so as to determine the ways of life of its consumers since this could be used to evoke increased sales. Finally, social factors also influence consumer behavior, factors like culture and religion could be determinants to whether a certain business would be allowed to operate in a specific locality. Advertising, being the main method of product promotion used by festival marketplaces, an advert should therefore be considerate of the people’s culture and religion so as not to contradict what they believe (Blythe, 2008). In conclusion, most festival marketplaces are resolving to partner with relevant NGOs to achieve their individual goals. It might partner with an NGO dealing with youth affairs to organize music or drama festivals for the youth. This would help the festival in its product promotion and attaining a good image alongside fulfilling the NGO’s goal of bettering the youths’ lives. Businesses ventures should therefore incorporate the public in their operations so as to attain a symbolic meaning in the public’s perception. Reference List BLYTHE, J. (2008). Consumer Behavior. Cengage Learning EMEA. Print FESTIVAL FLEA MARKET MALL. Retrieved From: http://festival.com/about-us HOYER, W., & MACLNNIS, J. D. (2008). Consumer Behavior. Cengage Learning. Print LANGE, A. (2009). Rebooting the Festive Marketplace. Observatory. Retrieved From: http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7927 MAITLAND, B. (1990). The New Architecture of the Retail Mall. Van Nostrand Reinhold. Print SCHUPP, S. (2005). New Architecture of Shopping Complexes. Page One. Print THE ANNUAL ARIZONA. (2014). Renaissance Festival and Artisan Marketplace. Retrieved From: http://www.royalfaires-portal.com/arizona/ UPPER CANADA COLLEGE. (2013). Festive Market Place 2013. Bluenet. Retrieved From: https://bluenet.ucc.on.ca/festive2013 WRIGHT, R. (2006). Consumer Behavior. Cengage Learning. Print Read More