exercise 2
Chapter 10: buying, using, and disposing
Dr. Jennifer Houston MAR4503
Situational effects on consumer behavior
A consumption situation includes a buyer, a seller, and a product or service
Many other factors are also involved, such as the reason we want to make a purchase and how the physical environment makes us feel
In addition to the functional relationships between products and usage situation, another reason to take environmental circumstances seriously is that a person’s situational self-image – the role they play at any one time – helps to determine what they want to buy or consume
Marketers need to fine-tune their segmentation strategies to take the usage situation/context into consideration
Many contextual factors affect our choices, such as our mood, whether we feel time pressure to make a purchase, and the particular reason we need the product
Situational effects on consumer behavior
Temporal factors
Time is one of our most precious resources, and we think more about what we want to buy when we have the luxury of taking our time
A person’s priorities determines their timestyle
With people feeling like they are more pressed for time than ever consumers may feel like they are in time poverty
In addition to physical cues, other people in the situation (co-consumers) affect purchase decisions
A consumers ‘psychological time’ is also important as consumers are more likely to buy when in certain moods as opposed to others
Many contextual factors affect our choices, such as our mood, whether we feel time pressure to make a purchase, and the particular reason we need the product
Situational effects on consumer behavior
Researches have determined four dimensions of time: The social dimension
The temporal orientation dimension
The planning orientation dimension
The polychronic orientation dimension
These researchers also identified five metaphors that capture the perspective of time:
Time is a pressure cooker
Time is a map
Time is a mirror
Time is a river
Time is a feast
Many contextual factors affect our choices, such as our mood, whether we feel time pressure to make a purchase, and the particular reason we need the product
The shopping experience
The competitive marketplace is one reason marketers engage in design thinking, which emphasizes the importance of creating products, services, and stores on something deeper than just looks
Marketers need to be mindful of the customer journey and map out the steps a customer takes when interacting with the company
The journey spans a variety of touchpoints moving from awareness to engagement to purchase
The consumer journey concept was influenced by the Japanese approach of total quality management called gemba
There is a fierce competition among brands for consumers attention, which involves a seller’s desire to lure customers into stores or to their website to complete transactions
mood
Two basic dimensions, pleasure and arousal, determine whether we will react positively or negatively to a consumption environment
Many factors, including store design, the weather, and a person's personal life can affect a consumers buying mood
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping
We segment consumers in terms of their shopping orientation, or their general attitudes about shopping
These orientations vary depending on the particular product categories and store types we consider
Hedonic shopping motives include the following:
Social experiences – can I spend leisure time here?
Sharing of common interests with other shoppers
Status – how important does this feel?
The thrill of the hunt – haggling and bargaining
Group pressure
E-commerce
As more websites pop up to sell virtually every type of product, marketers continue to debate how the online world effects their business
Digital currency is one current trend influencing how people shop online
We now have digital wallets
Peer-to-peer payment systems (like PayPal) now exist
Cryptocurrency is trending (blockchaining, Bitcoin)
Industries like the fashion industry have pretailers that allow consumers to preview personalized, more expensive products
Retail theming
The quest to entertain means that many stores go all out to create imaginative environments that transport shoppers to fantasy worlds or provide other kinds of stimulation
Innovative merchants today use the four basic kinds of theming techniques:
Landscape themes
Marketscape themes
Cyberspace themes
Mindscape themes
Store image
Atmospherics – careful store design increase the amount of space the shopper covers, and stimulating displays keep them in the aisles for longer
Some retailers create activity stores that let consumers participate in the production of the product or services they buy there
A stores image is the physical manifestation of the store’s personality
Design features typically work together to create an overall impression
In-store decision making
Store displays are especially important within the context of selling food
Research evidence indicates that consumers use mental budgets typically composed of both an itemized portion and in-store slack
Tricks to selling in a grocery setting are:
Sell sweets at eye-level, midway in an aisle where shoppers linger
Use the ends of aisles to generate big revenues
Use freestanding displays toward the rear of the supermarket
Sprinkle the same product throughout the store
Group ingredients for a meal in one spot
Other aspects of shopping behavior
Mobile shopping apps on smartphones provide imaginative new ways for shoppers through the buying experience – sometimes even through AR & VR platforms
Unplanned and impulse buying are types of spontaneous shopping buyers might engage in, which can be increased by strategically placing impulse items in the store
Well-designed store displays, or point-of-purchase stimuli, can boost impulse purchases by as much as 10%
The salesperson involved in the buying process is one of the most important players in the retail experience, and effective salespeople are good at picking up people’s traits and identifying needs quickly
Ownership and the sharing economy
commerce
We’re witnessing the rise of the sharing economy, or what is sometimes called collaborative consumption
In this business model, people rent what they need rather than buying it
Technology has dramatically lowered transaction costs, which makes it easier to share assets and track them
The notion of doing business with other consumers rather than with companies is called P2P (peer-to-peer)
Postpurchase satisfaction and disposal
Consumers want quality and value in their products, but satisfaction or dissatisfaction is more than a reaction to how well a product or service performs
According to the expectancy disconfirmation model, we form beliefs about product performance based on our prior experience with the product
Product disposal is also an important element of consumer behavior
This can include the process of returning items
How recyclable a product is may also be of special importance to consumers
Our overall reactions to a product after we’ve bought it (consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction) plays a big role in our future behavior
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