Consumer Behaviour - Coursework Example

? Consumer Behaviour Consumer Behaviour Consumer behaviour is the process of selection, buying and consumption of merchandise and services for satisfying their varying wants. There are diverse processes concerned with the consumer behaviour. Originally, the consumer tries to find what goods he would like to use, then he chooses only those commodities that assure greater value. After selecting the goods, the buyer makes an estimate of the accessible money that he can use. Lastly, the shopper analyzes the existing prices of goods and takes the choice about the goods he should use. Meanwhile, there are varieties of other factors that influence the purchases of buyer such as social, personal, cultural, and psychological (WALTERS 1978). (1)Cultural/Environment Factor The environment in which a business operates influences consumer behaviour. Clients are always attracted to clean and healthy places. With this knowledge in mind, advertisers can put emphasis on the cleanliness of the production process and general handling of goods. Customer behaviour is extremely influenced by cultural issues such as purchaser culture, subculture, and the social class. Culture is the part of each society and is the significant cause of personal desires and behaviour. The power of culture on consumer behaviour varies from state to state. Consequently, marketers have to be extremely cautious in analyzing the culture of diverse groups, areas or even countries. Each culture and environment contains diverse subcultures such as religions, geographic regions, nationalities, racial groups etc. Marketers can employ these groups via segmenting the market into a variety of small portions. For instance, marketers can plan products according to the wants of a particular geographic area (DEBRUICKER QUELCH & WARD 1986). Reference groups clearly have ability in forming a person outlook or behaviour. The effect of reference groups differs across products and the brands. For instance if the product is noticeable like a dress, a bunch of shoes, a car etc then the power of reference groups will be a bit high. Reference groups also comprise the opinion leader (the person who affects others behaviours because of his particular skill, the knowledge or other unique characteristics) (DEBRUICKER QUELCH & WARD 1986). Each society their is some type of social class that is significant to the marketers since the buying behaviour of persons in a given social class is alike. In this way, marketing actions could be designed according to diverse social classes. Now we should note that the social class is not determined by income alone but there are several other reasons as well such as: assets, education, profession etc (BABIN & HARRIS 2011). Social factors also affect the consumer behaviour of customers. The significant social factors are situation groups, family, the role and the status. The members of a family adversely influence buyer behaviour. Consequently, marketers are working hard to find the roles and power of the husband, the wife and the children. If wife influences the buying decision of a particular product then the marketers will attempt to target women in their advertisement. Now we should note that purchasing roles change with vary in the consumer lifestyles (BEST HAWKINS & MOTHERSBAUGH 2007). Every person possesses unique roles and status in a society relying upon groups, family, clubs, and organization to which the person belongs. For instance, a woman is working in a certain organization as the finance manager. Here she is playing double roles, one as the finance manager and other role as a mother. Consequently, her purchasing decisions will be influenced by the role and the status (DEBRUICKER QUELCH & WARD 1986). (2) Personal Factors Personal factors also shape the consumer behaviour. The important personal aspects that influence the purchasing behaviour are the lifestyle of a person, economic condition, profession, age, character and self-concept. Age and the life cycle have noticeable impact on the customer buying behaviour. It is apparent that the customers change the buying of commodities and services in time. Family life cycle has diverse stages such as young singles, the married couples, and the unmarried couples etc that assist marketers to increase appropriate commodities for each stage.The profession of a person has important impact on his purchasing behaviour. For instance, an advertising manager of a business will try to buy business suits, while a low-level employee in the same business will buy rugged labour clothes (SOLOMON, ASKEGAARD, & BAMOSSY 2006). Buyer economic condition has huge influence on the consumer behaviour. If the earnings and savings of the customer are high then he will buy products that are more expensive. On the other side, a person with low earnings and savings will buy cheap products. Lifestyle of consumers is another significant factor affecting the customer buying behaviour. Lifestyle is the way a human being lives in a culture and is demonstrated by the things in his/her environment. It is based customer interests, the opinions, the activities etc and forms his whole pattern of working and interacting in the globe. Personality differs from one person to another, from time to time and from place to place. Consequently, it can deeply influence the consumer behaviour of customers. In fact, Personality is not what a person wears; somewhat it is the entirety of behaviour of a person in different conditions. It has diverse characteristics like dominance, fierceness, self-assurance etc that can be useful to know the consumer behaviour for particular good or service (SOLOMON, ASKEGAARD, & BAMOSSY 2006). (3) The Psychological Factors There are about four important psychological issues affecting the buyer consumer behaviour. These factors are the perception, the motivation, education, beliefs and the attitudes. The height of motivation also influences the buying behavior of consumers. Each person has different requirements such as physiological requirements, biological requirements, social wants etc. The nature of the requirements is that, several of them are generally pressing whilst others are slightly pressing. Consequently, a need becomes a drive when it is more serious to direct the person to look for satisfaction (SOLOMON, ASKEGAARD, & BAMOSSY 2006). Choosing, organizing and then interpreting information in a way to create a significant experience of the earth are called perception. There are three dissimilar perceptual processes. The processes are selective attention, the selective distortion and the selective retention. In case of selective attention, marketers try to attract the customer attention. Whereas, in case of selective distortion, customers try to interpret the information in a way that will confirm what the customers previously believe. Likewise, in case of the selective retention, marketers try to keep information that is in like with their beliefs (DEBRUICKER QUELCH & WARD 1986). Consumer possesses precise belief and attitude relating to various products. Since these beliefs and attitudes create a brand image and influence the consumer behaviour, hence marketers are looking at them. Marketers can alter the beliefs and the attitudes of consumers by launching extraordinary campaigns concerning them (BLYTHE 2008). Organizations frequently study customer behaviour to know when, how, why and where they should advertise their goods and services. For instance, if you know individuals tend to prefer office supplies by the familiar brands, then you are going to attempt to make the office supply brand a family name, creating advertisements, social media pages and the promotions for your merchandise. Nevertheless, if you are selling books that only the graduate students purchase, you possibly will not use, as much time with commercial, will direct more time to hanging posters in the graduate schools, and then becoming Face book pals with graduate programs. Consumer behaviour assists organizations decide what goods and services to produce or offer. Once they evaluate on what customers purchase and how they come up with they different ways of identifying what products to purchase and what to be left out, companies can more simply spot a necessitate that lacks in they product and supplement it with something either of the same quality or of a supplementary function. For instance, the Unilever Company in Kenya noticed that the in product Omo multi active had numerous complains of bleaching and reacting with people’s hands, though it is the most popular washing detergent in that country, it gained competition. The company therefore took interest and went back to their target market, asked them their queries, analyzed them and came up with a better-advanced detergent, the Omo fresh, which comes with a softener for clothes, and does not react with hands. This idea was unique, as no other competition company had thought of such an idea. When you are aware of how consumers behave in relation to the goods, you are selling, and then you have a good understanding of how to give good service to them, raising the probability that you will have repeat consumers. For instance, if you know that consumers tend to come to your hotel since they can get good food devoid of waiting for a very long time, you should carry on training your wait employees to be as resourceful as possible (BLYTHE 2008). Gather some customer behaviour data by just analyzing the sales data you already have. For instance, you can see whether the majority of your goods are brought with cash or credit card. If you happen to have a clock on the register, you know then when individuals tend to buy in your store. Nevertheless, you should not restrict yourself to that information. The most important information is from the depth answers from your customers about their expenditure. Focus groups, the surveys and the one-on-one interviews are better ways to get the information about customer behaviour. Encourage the consumers to contribute in these projects by offering rewards, like a contest entry or a discount, for the survey completion or the focus group contribution (BLYTHE 2008). Bibliography BLYTHE, J. (2008). Consumer behaviour. London, Thomson Learning. SOLOMON, M. R., ASKEGAARD, S., & BAMOSSY, G. J. (2006). Consumer behaviour: a European perspective. New York [u.a.], Prentice Hall Europe. BEST, R. J., HAWKINS, D. I., & MOTHERSBAUGH, D. L. (2007). Consumer behavior: building marketing strategy. Boston, Mass. [u.a.], McGraw-Hill/Irwin. DEBRUICKER, F. S., QUELCH, J. A., & WARD, S. (1986). Cases in consumer behavior. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall. WALTERS, C. G. (1978). Consumer behavior: theory and practice. Homewood, Ill, R.D. Irwin. BABIN, B. J., & HARRIS, E. G. (2011). CB2. Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage Learning. Read More