Defining the Buying Behaviors of the Consumers - Case Study Example

Consumer Behaviour By Student’s Name Course + Code Class Institution Date Executive Summary This study is constructed in structure of a marketing report that is data based. The major objective of this study is to analyze the consumer behaviour patterns in a perspective of a retailing market. To accomplish the said objective, the study has collected and recorded the weekly buying data of a specific consumer segment. The weekly data is presented in an excel sheet using tables and graphs. This report use theoretical approach to analyze the data. The theories used, analyses behaviour patterns of the consumers, in order to analyze the direct factors influencing the consumers purchasing behaviours (Cohen, 2017). Additionally, this study establishes the importance of understanding the behaviour patterns of the consumer for the product marketers in a term of insights. This study is very significant in providing information in the marketing field, to enable scholars and managers to be able to understand the theoretical concepts of behaviour patterns of consumers and their effects in real life. Introduction Individual, social, emotional and cultural factors plays a crucial role in defining the buying behaviours of the consumers (Cohen, 2017). Social class, sub-culture and overall cultural practices impacts the overall behaviour of consumers. For instance, a consumer who has been raised in countries such as Australia or in the US, are exposed to choose, freedom, achievement, and individualism (Cohen, 2017). On the level of sub-culture, what influences the consumer behaviour is factors such as geographical location, race, ethnicity and religion (Cohen, 2017). The social class aspect comprises consumers who have same taste, education, feeling, education, taste, and inferiority or superiority feeling. As time progresses consumers shifts from one level to another level. The consumer behaviour of high-involvement is based on the examination of the behaviours of the same consumer. Focusing on what tendency a specific consumer looks forward in order to buy certain goods is very crucial. The main focus is cantered on the buyers who observes the SWOT approach to construct market changes. Companies which have an issue of higher dealing struggles to bring down the customer system through the matching of brands. Companies may use the Sales agents to collect information about the consumers’ behaviour. In order to reach out to many consumers, companies dealing with low-association products or items such as the biting gums, use publicizing or promotional means. The promotional means may include the use of coupons to promote the product (Cohen, 2017). Additionally, in order to promote these kind of products, the company may decide to offer an extra prudent number of biting gums to attract more consumers (Cohen, 2017). On the other hand, items that are categorized as high-association such as motor-bike, vehicle and other heavy duty machines, may use sales individuals to answer clients’ inquiries (Cohen, 2017). The companies dealing in the high-association products, depend on establishing a brand that can be trusted by the consumers so as to influence he consumer behaviours positively. The consumers’ purchasing behaviour decreases the customers’ intentions of purchasing (Cohen, 2017). In the marketing aspect, customer purchasing behaviour can be seen as the habits and perception demonstrated by the consumers while buying particular services or goods (Cohen, 2017). For a sale representative, valuable knowledge of consumer purchasing behaviour can be viewed as one of the primary phenomena, which follows an important amount of connotation based on the strategic viewpoint (Cohen, 2017). The daily purchasing trend analysis can be seen as one of the main strategies through which the consumers purchasing behaviour can be examined and estimated. In this regard, this study aims at analysing the daily buying trends undertaken by the author, as an average individual. In this regard, the examination of different habits and trends of purchasing can be conducted through the help of marketing perspective and various theories. The main purpose of this study is deliver insights of high degree in regard to the consumer purchasing behaviour for commercial firms and its duty towards marketer’s strategic formulation. Relative to this, the report starts by exploring the consumer’s profiling description. In conjunction, this study reflects on the purchasing done in a week in relation to the pertinent marketing theories. Consumer Description From a concrete marketing decision insights perspective, a sales representative is required to make a decision on a specific segment he/she can target easily (Nguyen, 2016). Based on this perspective, consideration and segmentation of the consumers can be done based on their demographics, buying behaviours, geographic basis and psychographics. The consumer profiling in this report context can be exhibited as: Consumer Segment: As explained by the theory of marketing segmentation, there are various basis of classifying consumer’s segment. Based on this, the author of this report, as a consumer, can be categorized basing on the two categories, demographic and psychographic. Demographic: The consumer is a boy of 20 years, an undergraduate college student, who apart from studying, he works on a part time job to boost his income. The consumer belongs to a middle income and literate family. It is a fact that preference for different products vary depending on the groups of consumers. The preferences are directly related to the demographic traits of the buyer, which include the level of income, ethnicity, age and the household type (Localdirective.com, 2017). Therefore, the consumers purchasing behaviour can be analysed based on these aspects. Psychographic Psychographic is another important perspective of understanding the practices of segmentation for the identified consumer. Psychographic refers to the classification and study of human beings in a marketing research, based on their aspirations, attitudes, and other psychological aspects (Localdirective.com, 2017). The identified consumer demonstrates a positive and strong attraction towards brands from multinational companies such as Pascal Marsh malls item. Additionally, the consumer is directly or indirectly affected by the convenience in his buying behaviour. Purchase Preference The identified consumer demonstrates a high degree of preference towards purchasing of brands that are from prestigious multinationals and product services that are highly convenient. The identified consumer in addition, indicates a liking for customized services (Nguyen, 2016). In addition to this, the consumer also shows his preference towards ready to use products, as well as, customized services. The ready to use and customized products are shown by the transactions that occurred on 16th March. Purchase Behaviour Consumers under this segment, generally do not belong to a class of high income earning. Therefore, the intention for purchase for this consumer is not very high. The consumer loves to make small segment purchases. His frequency of purchasing luxurious goods and services is low ("Young Optimism", 2017). The daily routine items in many households, is also what this consumer is interested in mostly. Using the Roy Morgan’s segment, the consumer can be categorized under young optimism segment. Young optimism trait refers to the individual’s response patterns associated with optimism and the search of improving prosperity to attain a respected position in the community. This kind of trait is mostly found in the majority of young individuals. Most of people under this segment are into style and personal image ("Young Optimism", 2017). The young individual with this character are mindful of the kind of the image they depict; hence they are very careful. The individuals under this category are mostly university or college students, engaging in long-term thinking, they are occupied with career and future planning ("Young Optimism", 2017). The mental inclination under this segment is related the individuals who want to experience the best out of life such as travelling, career, family, and friends ("Young Optimism", 2017). People under this segment want to experiment everything, from skiing, skydiving, travelling to long distance and other related events. These individuals play and work hard, since they are energetic. They are interested in technological advancements and quite innovative. Analysis of Weekly Purchases using Relevant Marketing Theories For the reasons of examining the purchasing behaviour of an individual consumer, there should be a deep analysis of the trends of spending for that consumer (Brennan, 2016). In this regard, the weekly consumer spending records has been taken into consideration. Different consumer purchasing behaviour theories can be used to help in the discussion and analysis of this trend (Brennan, 2016). For example, the trend of weekly spending for the consumer indicates that the majority of purchases occurs between Wednesday and Sunday. The percentage spending on these days stands at an average of 40% of the total purchase made. For instance, the Wednesday expense was $ 200 and on Sunday the Kindle paper white Wi-Fi and kindle case cover costed $ 177.42 Whereas, on the remaining days of the week, the consumer’s spending is at an average of 63%. This kind of trend demonstrates that the consumer has a liking for convenient buying (Brennan, 2016). The high rate of weekly spending can be linked to the time available for the consumer to shop, since during the weekdays the consumer is busy. Additionally, the weekly spending records shows that the consumer use electronic payment more as compared to paying through cash. For instance, all transaction on Tuesday 14th was paid by the use of Estos, from 17th to 19th the payments were all done through Estos and PayPal. The major purchase that was done on 22nd for the purchase of Kindle Wi-fi, was paid through credit card. payment on a significant amount of purchased. The consumer only uses cash on convenient purchases and when buying less expensive items. This can be seen on the transactions that took place on mon 27th. Most of the items purchased on this day at Woolworths were grocery items which are usually cheap. The behaviour of purchasing demonstrated by the consumer can be analyzed using through the application of the theory of economic purchase (Brennan, 2016). The theory states that, credit or electronic purchasing is viewed as being economical and effective option when compared with cash transaction (Brennan, 2016). Furthermore, from the personal context influence perspective, it can be seen that cultural and social viewpoint, can be rated as highly influential factors. When looking at the consumer shopping records, under the influence index, the consumer has proved that the black box model is surely true (Brennan, 2016). This is demonstrated through the highlighting of the roommates, friends and classmates as the highest influencers. The model of black box explaining the consumer behaviour, focusses also on the processes of purchasing decisions and traits of the consumer. This model demonstrates that between the consumer’s traits and their decision process and the external stimuli, there is a direct interaction. Theoretically, this model explains that behaviourism is a major marketing concept. The theory states that the behaviour of the consumer is induced directly by environmental stimuli in social factors form (Brennan, 2016). The model demonstrates that the patterns of consumer purchasing are influenced by social factors. For instance, family members can have an impact on the product purchased by an individual. Based on social status theory, it has been analyzed that the characteristics of the buyer are significant in determining purchasing behaviour including their motivation, attitudes, personality, motivation and lifestyle. Using the weekly shopping report this is evident. The consumer behaviour is directly linked to the social factors (Brennan, 2016). Actually, the theory means that some products are purchased by consumers for the sake of maintaining their success. The theory asserts that sometimes, consumers just purchase expensive items to maintain the social status (Schiffman, & Wisenblit, 2015). The consumer in this study is highly influenced by the people around him. For instance, the consumer bought on 16th march, Harris Scarfe at a price of $ 14 because it was recommended by the surrounding people, which included friends. The consume also bought some items to meet own physiological satisfaction. For most of consumers, after buying repeatedly a specific brand, they tend to be loyal to those brands. This also the case for the identified consumer in this study. The purchase made on 17th March, which involved Western Star Dairy at the store, was done because of the consumer loyalty to the brand. The social status theory is significant especially for the sales representatives to understand the consumer purchasing behaviour (Schiffman, & Wisenblit, 2015). The marketers at different organizations, ought to focus on promotions that makes the consumers to buy their products based on the social status of the target customers. The theory concurs with the findings obtained from the shopping data. The purchasing motivation can be viewed as a major aspect that hinders the consumer’s purchasing habit. Most of the weekly purchases made by the consumer were motivated by psychological needs. The physiological motivated purchases stand at 67%. Based on the Maslow theory of hierarchy of needs, an individual purchase is driven by distinct level of needs (Brennan, 2016). Through the foregoing analysis, it is evident that various theories, can be applied to explain the consumer behaviours and various factors influencing those behaviours. High-involvement Purchasing Nomination In the coming days, as a product and service consumer, my purchasing involvement will increase in terms of purchasing of electronic goods such as mobile gadgets, specifically, Apple phones. The reason is because those gadgets have unique features I perceive to be of significance in my routine life. Based on the market theory’s product integrated concept, there is different product layers which can initiate the urge in a consumer to purchase a particular product (Saylordotorg.github.io, 2017). For instance, in the technological field, especially mobile phones, there are promotional offers that can attract a targeted buyer. Similarly, the consumer purchasing behaviour theory of black box, explains that the sensory information relating to a given product, such as its technology, designing and packaging makes the consumer to perceive that product as unique. The theory explains that these factors induces the purchase of the product by influencing the pattern of consumer purchasing behaviour (Saylordotorg.github.io, 2017). Therefore, my high-involvement in the purchasing of Apple phone, can incorporate the consumer purchasing behaviour concept with the marketing theory. Conclusion/Insight Based on the general examination of practices and patterns of consumer purchasing in a recorded week, it has been established that the purchasing behaviour of the consumer is not static and heavily relies on the external stimuli and situations. Apart from purchasing to meet physiological wants, the consumers are also affected by their friends, family and other individuals who forms their social groups. The patterns depicted by shopping data, shows that most purchases are done from Wed to Sundays. The purchasing pattern shown is caused by several factors. This concept is also supported by the theory of consumer behaviour and marketing. By having looking deeply in the provided data and analysing the findings thoroughly, it is agreed that the purchasing behaviour of the consumer, is a significant issue for sales representatives working in the global markets. For the marketers promoting brands, it is crucial that they promote their product and services based on the consumer purchasing behaviours. References Brennan, L. (2016). Social marketing and behaviour change. 1st ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cohen, G. (2017). Relevant Marketing Consumer Behavior Theories. [online] Smallbusiness.chron.com. Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/relevant-marketing-consumer-behavior-theories-20800.html [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017]. Localdirective.com. (2017). Psychographic Market Segmentation | LocalDirective. [online] Available at: https://www.localdirective.com/what-we-do/market-segmentation/psychographic/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017]. Nguyen, T. (2016). Customer Segmentation: A Guide | OpenView Labs. [online] OpenView Labs. Available at: http://labs.openviewpartners.com/customer-segmentation/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017]. Roy Morgan. (2017). Young Optimism. [online] Available at: http://www.roymorgan.com/products/values-segments/young-optimism [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017]. Saylordotorg.github.io. (2017). Low-Involvement Versus High-Involvement Buying Decisions and the Consumer’s Decision-Making Process. [online] Available at: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_principles-of-marketing-v2.0/s06-02-low-involvement-versus-high-in.html [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017]. Schiffman, L. and Wisenblit, J. (2015). Consumer behavior. 1st ed. Boston: Pearson, pp.20-45. Read More