Understanding Consumer Behavior

Part A

Executive Summary

This assignment requires demonstrating understanding of social and cultural i.e. external factors. There is highlight presented on perspectives of purchase behaviour, and interpretation of buyer’s identity. Psychological i.e. internal factors, symbolical meaning, ideology and consumption of experience related to products purchased have also been undertaken in this study. Here, discussion is presented on high involvement product and low involvement product. This social media influence and reviews on ecommerce websites has helped in increasing the demand of both products. Therefore, the study justifies uses of theories in purchase management and connecting with 4p’s of marketing while essentially highlighting the consumer behavior.

Introduction

This assignment requires an understanding and demonstration of social and cultural factors. Perspectives of purchase behaviour have been discussed in this context as well. In this study, interpretation of a person’s identity along with psychological factors and symbolic meanings has been explained. Ideology and consumption of certain elements are required for the definite engagement of the product purchase process. Here, two recent product purchases have been highlighted. Here, a balanced theory and consistency principle have been applied that ensures process engagement and overall interpretation of systems. There is multiple natures observed while purchasing a product. However, reassessing purchase patterns has become important for the description of external and internal purchase thought. Product purchase requires high and low involvement optimization and hence there is deep analysis provided on 4p’s of marketing.

Description of products

High involvement product

High involvement products are those that represent a consumer's personality, status and justifying. One of the recent purchases includes a laptop, which is having a high price. An analysis can be presented in terms of the 4p’s of management and these are:

Product: Product is the new Dell Inspiron 14 laptop and this is one of the recent developments of this organization. This comes with the 11th Generation Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor. It has 8 MB cache and that too up to 4.2 GHZ. It has Windows 10 home single language feature with 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive. There are configurations observed of ”8GB, 8GBx1, DDR4, 3200MHz” (Wei, Ang, and Jancenelle, 2018). It has been carried inside “Intel Iris Xe Graphics with shared graphics memory”. There are multiple ports and slots available as a part of micro sd card reader and USB 3.2 Gen 1. Power jack and availability of HDMI slots is making this product desirable.

Price: It comes at a price point of approximately 791.34 United States Dollar and this involves real time exchange rates. It is identified as a competitor to many of the available products in the market in terms of giving a smooth performance.

Promotion: promotional campaigns have been issued online, this particular product is for the tech experts, and they engage in complete specification of products. Giving advertisements in Google platforms and in social media have been essential for this product’s promotion.

Place: It is observed that a place of involvement is associated with selling the product in local and geographically advanced locations.

Low involvement product

One of the low involvement products are associated with the ones where a person does not have to think twice before purchasing. In this case, low involvement products are categorized as household cleaner. Now, product can be assessed as:

Product: This product is identified as an important one in terms of habitual buying. This item is a disinfectant that comes in the form of liquid, which is 1.5lt. The quality of this cleaner is impressive as it comes with an all-natural product base and has a lesser amount of harsh chemicals included inside (Wei, Ang, and Jancenelle, 2018). This disinfectant range helps in germ protection and cleaning up the entire household and gives maximum protection against any sort of harmful viruses.

Price: This is quite affordable and the range begins from 3 dollar only. The quantity is also massive in terms of price being offered.

Promotion: There is a promotional campaign indulged that incorporates offline hoarding and online promotion on ecommerce websites. Online buying has become a trend and ecommerce websites are maximizing the benefits.

Place: Local markets and all online stores are identified as important for selling and buying of these products.

Pre-purchase analysis

Internal

A person’s purchase behavior is typically influenced by the motivation, perception, learning and attitude of that person. In this case, a high involvement product is a necessity and it involves affective buying. On the other hand, low involvement products purchased in this case involve habitual buying. Disinfect cleaners are something that consumers buy usually to gain a secure cleaning experience. Affective feeling is associated with feel products. Product purchase requires high and low involvement optimization marketing. Some psychological aspects of purchasing can be discussed as the following:

Motivation

A motivation refers to the urgent and conscious need of a customer. Luke in this case, buying the laptop is taken into as a conscious decision for fulfilling the basic need (Wang et al. 2019). A person might have basic needs, self-esteem needs, self actualization needs, social needs and security needs. Out of all these basic and security needs are the one that influences a person in buying certain items. Motivation is gained towards buying a product through basic need assessment.

Perception

Consumer perception is the majority item in terms of influencing consumer behaviour. Customer perception is also important as the customer collects information about a particular product and interprets information of meaningful projections. This social media influence and reviews on ecommerce websites has helped in increasing the demand of both products. Advertisements presented on Google platforms have also left a great influence on product buying decision in this case.

Learning

Once a product is brought, more learning is engaged and something essential is associated with this product line. Skills and knowledge are also dependable in experience management of a product. Conditional learning and exceptional management of process is indulged with sharing knowledge and exposing the consumers to reality (Wang et al. 2019). Knowledge is gathered through doing some research on the product on the internet and reading the label carefully. For a high involvement product, all specifications are discussed in a concise way. All items that have been brought require cognitive learning for applying the knowledge and key functionalities to engage in a solution.

Attitude and beliefs

Certain attitudinal aspects are analyzed that incorporate buying products with a good brand image. Designing marketing campaigns and playing a sufficient role in management of components have been analyzed as well. Moreover, influence from family groups on buying disinfectant and cleaning households have been identified as effective measures.

External

External factors mostly focus on the social and cultural aspects of psychological behaviour. In this particular buying case, family and reference groups, are analyzed the most. For both products, initialization of important components have been essential.

Family:

For the low involvement product, a shaping of mentality can be seen. A person watches a particular item to be shopped by family members from childhood and group ups with a concept that the product is the right choice for their family (Wang, 2017). In this case, low involvement products are continuing its association with preconceived thought processes. While for high involvement product family and economic support is identified as important in influencing the purchase behavior.

Reference groups:

In reference groups, a common buying behaviour of household items is influencing the consumer behaviour largely.

Roles and status:

Influence of specific standards is associated with holding up a high position in society. Like, in this case, there are roles associated with high positions in society (Tommaset et al. 2018). Buying the laptop with high configuration emerges in showing a particular status and roles.

Culture and subculture:

Cultural attitude is associated with significant buying and selling of components and working along several geographic and cultural domains has been essential in religion and cultural value assessments. Customer segmentation along with offering good products at a good price point is engaged within.

Social class:

While purchasing an expensive item it is important to find out whether social class is permitting the person to buy an expensive item (Ting et al. 2019). Understanding appropriate economical position is important in terms of social class derivative management.

Decision making process

Consumer decision-making process is associated with 5 steps and this includes problem recognition along with information search and alternative evaluation. Purchase decision and post purchase decision evaluation is also associated within an understanding of effective decision-making process. Problem evaluation is associated with the internal and external recognition management of behaviours.

Problem evaluation

Consumers need to recognize the things they want and gathering information is needed for influence management of consumers. As in this case, viruses are seen to be growing largely in the outside world (Roy, Datta, and Mukherjee, 2019). Hence, purchasing a disinfectant household cleaner becomes a necessity. Moreover, the world is being digitized and people are more prone toward working from home. Hence, having a feature loaded is a necessity to fulfill work requirements.

Information search

All consumers are in need of researching a bit on the specific information supplied. There is a majority of content available describing important aspects of information. Google and customer reviews of ecommerce platforms are identified as important in information search management. Moreover, social influencers sometimes talk about certain products that are important and require consumer generated content to be managed to the core. Video testimonials and websites are contributing the most in such cases.

Alternatives evaluation

In case of buying a product of high involvement and low involvement, there is comparable infrastructure developed within a customers mind. Customers need to analyze what alternatives are available for them to engage in product availability and product benefit identification (Rambocas, Kirpalani, and Simms, 2018). Like in this case, different other rates of computers have been accessed while the purchase was in progress and based on feature and performance the product was compared. Moreover, in case of a low involvement product all other products being offered at the same price range were compared. It was found out that the quantity and quality both were more in this product. It also came with natural fragrance and color.

Purchase decision

Purchase decision is important as after gathering information and facts consumers may think of not purchasing the product or make an immediate purchase depending on the logical conclusion that the consumer has arrived. For example, a situation might occur that the laptop being purchased here is given a discount and offered at 20% less (Minbashrazgah, Maleki, and Torabi, 2017). Then the customer has to buy the product as it gives a pocket friendly option to the individual. Moreover, a buy one get one offer on a low involvement product is gaining maximum concentration towards the product.

Post purchase decision

Post purchase decision analysis is important for the management of products. Reflection of both consumer and seller is important in this case. Hence, gathering reviews on satisfaction becomes important for consumers and product growth.

Post purchase analysis

This analysis can be done using balanced theory along with Cognitive Consistency theory. Balanced theory is applicable as it identifies the process of how customers are motivated to maintain persistence in relations and preferring consistency among their attitudes and beliefs. Founded by Fritz heider the theory helps in understanding organizational behaviour and psychological balance. Consumer beliefs and attitude drives the force of buying. In this case, buying a high involvement product has introduced a number of elements such as buying and consuming the benefits that come along with this product (Kurunathan, Shanmugathas, and Ashoka, 2019). It is identified as a product of necessity and it has an important value chain derived from a person’s pre conceived values and beliefs regarding a brand. In this case, evaluation of brand performance is done as well for identifying whether it is safe to purchase a product or not. Balanced theory also finds out whether the low involvement product is legitimate enough to be brought.

Human mental system usually tries to avoid any sort of inconsistency. It is mostly associated with the movement from dissonance to a harmonious state. In this case, orientation of buying household cleaning items involves regularity in purchasing a specific brand item. Management of consumer behavior by giving a good amount of discounts and quality products at a larger quantity is observed (Jang, Kitchen, and Kim, 2018). All consumers like to proceed through psychological harmony of beliefs and create an ingrown interest. In this case, conflicting attitudes are improvised along with management of products, which will be brought by customers. A consumer is always seeking cognitive elements to be engaged for avoidance of conflicting stimuli. For the high involvement product, there is a primary requirement of understanding the need of the product. In this case, the right amount of value is engaged with product performance and longevity.

Reassessing purchase patterns

Personal learning

I have learned that customer buying behaviour is divided into four parts. These are complex buying behavior along with dissonance reducing buying behavior, habitual behavior and variety seeking behavior. Now, from my personal learning I understand that I have habitual behaviour and this one engages in considerable amounts of considering family purchase history and cultural influence. Habitual behavior is associated with purchase of products that are going to be repeated (Djaelani, Negari, and Cuaca, 2020). A change in the situation and automatic starting of process is habitual and it is analyzed within a presence of action-linked goals. I usually prefer to compare things and then choose a product. I am a person who believes in saving money and finding the ideal product for me. Hence, I have researched before purchase and I did not take any immediate decisions. After looking through multiple websites, I found reviews that helped me in choosing the perfect laptop, which is a high involvement product for me. Moreover, I had gone through ecommerce websites and local stores before purchasing low involvement products to ensure my money is not wasted on vague items. The household clearance is disinfectant as well as free of harsh chemicals. It leaves a nice fragrance behind and the quantity of product is more than any other brands currently available in the market. These additional features have helped me make my buying decision (Huang et al. 2019). The most important step involved in my case of needs assessment that I had performed successfully.

Recommendation on next purchase

For later purchase, my recommendations would be to take some real life advice from real people. Some ecommerce websites are tampering with their customers' reviews and showing fake data. In this way, they are gathering more customers and their attention for a product that is not worth it (Chen, Lu, and Wang, 2017). Hence, to keep the shopping value intact I would like to do some field research from now on. This research process will also help me to gain an idea of the market and the product availability. Moreover, I will have the chance of saving more money through comparing different price points.

Conclusion

This study has concluded that the purchase is associated with habitual buying along with the feelings of buying a product. Post purchase analysis has been essential in today's context. The study recommends doing an analysis of online and offline sales of a product. There should be research conducted prior to the purchase of both high and low involvement products. Customer values and customer orientation is expected to be preserved through following a purchase theory and analyzing it. Psychological and social /cultural factors affecting purchase behaviour and all those are discussed quite well in this context. A 5 step decision making process has also been analyzed as a part of this process.

References

Journals

Chen, A., Lu, Y. and Wang, B., 2017. Customers’ purchase decision-making process in social commerce: A social learning perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 37(6), pp.627-638.

Djaelani, D.D., Negari, V.P. and Cuaca, D., 2020. GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AND BEHAVIOR AMONG MILLENNIAL COFFEE SHOP CUSTOMERS. Dinasti International Journal of Digital Business Management, 1(3), pp.409-422.

Huang, C., Wu, X., Zhang, X., Zhang, C., Zhao, J., Yin, D. and Chawla, N.V., 2019, July. Online purchase prediction via multi-scale modeling of behavior dynamics. In Proceedings of the 25th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining (pp. 2613-2622).

Jang, S., Kitchen, P.J. and Kim, J., 2018. The effects of gamified customer benefits and characteristics on behavioral engagement and purchase: Evidence from mobile exercise application uses. Journal of Business Research, 92, pp.250-259.

Kurunathan, D., Shanmugathas, S. and Ashoka, K., 2019. Analysis of relation between customer behavior and information technology market. Journal of System and Management Sciences, 9(1), pp.87-104.

Minbashrazgah, M.M., Maleki, F. and Torabi, M., 2017. Green chicken purchase behavior: the moderating role of price transparency. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal.

Rambocas, M., Kirpalani, V.M. and Simms, E., 2018. Brand equity and customer behavioral intentions: a mediated moderated model. International Journal of Bank Marketing.

Roy, G., Datta, B. and Mukherjee, S., 2019. Role of electronic word-of-mouth content and valence in influencing online purchase behavior. Journal of Marketing Communications, 25(6), pp.661-684.

Ting, C.T., Hsieh, C.M., Chang, H.P. and Chen, H.S., 2019. Environmental consciousness and green customer behavior: The moderating roles of incentive mechanisms. Sustainability, 11(3), p.819.

Tommasetti, A., Singer, P., Troisi, O. and Maione, G., 2018. Extended theory of planned behavior (ETPB): investigating customers’ perception of restaurants’ sustainability by testing a structural equation model. Sustainability, 10(7), p.2580.

Wang, T., 2017. Social identity dimensions and consumer behavior in social media. Asia Pacific Management Review, 22(1), pp.45-51.

Wang, Y., Xiang, D., Yang, Z. and Ma, S.S., 2019. Unraveling customer sustainable consumption behaviors in sharing economy: A socio-economic approach based on social exchange theory. Journal of cleaner production, 208, pp.869-879.

Wei, S., Ang, T. and Jancenelle, V.E., 2018. Willingness to pay more for green products: The interplay of consumer characteristics and customer participation. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 45, pp.230-238.

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