Consumer Behaviour - Assignment

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There are many factors that affect our purchases, including emotion. For instance, Yankelovich Partners found that buying a car is the most anxiety- provoking retail experience for consumers.

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Figure 10.1 illustrates that many contextual factors affect our choices. These might include mood, whether we feel time pressure to make a purchase, and the reason we need the product. Salespeople could play a role in our decisions, too.

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A consumer’s physical and social environment affects her motives to use a product as well as how she will evaluate the item. These cues include the immediate environment and the type and number of other consumers who are there. The sheer presence or absence of co-consumers is a product attribute. The presence of many people can increase physiological arousal levels so that our experiences seem more intense. Also, the type of consumers who are in a store affects our perceptions. We infer things about a store from the customers there.

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Time is one of consumers’ most precious resources. We may change what we want to buy based on temporal influences like what time it is or how much time is left before we need the product. Economic time points out that time is an economic variable – think “time is money.” People’s priorities determine their timestyle. Your timestyle determines how you spend your time resource. Some people feel that they are time poor. That means that they simply feel that they do not have sufficient time. It may be just a perception because people actually have more time free from work than ever before, but there are just so many options now!

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A study looked at how the timestyles of a group of American women influence their consumption choices. The researchers found four dimensions of time. The social dimension refers to individuals’ categorization of time as either “time for me” or “time with/for others.” The temporal orientation dimension depicts the relative significance individuals attach to past, present, or future. The planning orientation dimension alludes to different time management styles varying on a continuum from analytic to spontaneous. The polychronic orientation dimension distinguishes between people who prefer to do one thing at a time from those who multitask.

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Those same researchers found that women viewed time in different ways and they developed five metaphors to capture how women viewed time. Women who view time as a pressure cooker are analytical and monochronic. They usually feel like the are under pressure and they shop in a methodical manner. Women who view time as a map are also analytical but they focus on the future and tend to multitask. They tend to engage in extensive information search and comparison shopping. Women who view time as a mirror are analytical and polychronic but they have a past temporal orientation (as opposed to the time as a map women). These women are risk averse and they stick to brands they trust. Women who view time as a river tend to be very spontaneous with a focus on the present. They go shopping on the spur of the moment. Women who view time as a feast are analytical planners with a present focus. They view time as something that allows them to enjoy life. For this reason, they tend to seek out opportunities for hedonic consumption.

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As consumers make decisions they are influenced by the situation they are in too.

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Focus groups, in which a small set of consumers comes into a facility to try a new item while company personnel observe them from behind a mirror. Total quality management (TQM) is a complex set of management and engineering procedures that aims to reduce errors and increase quality. Gemba, which to the Japanese means “the one true source of information.”

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The shopping experience is affected by how pleasant our environment is perceived and our level of arousal during the consumption experience. We can enjoy or not enjoy and feel stimulated or not. Clearly our mood can affect the experience. This figure illustrates the influence of the two basic dimensions of pleasure and arousal. Evaluations will be more positive when our mood state is positive.

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We can segment consumers in terms of their shopping orientation, or general attitudes about shopping. These orientations vary depending on the particular product categories and store types we consider. The motives for shopping are listed on the slide. Many people shop for the social benefits. Shopping areas are areas to hang out with friends and family. Stores frequently offer specialized goods that allow people with shared interests to communicate. Shopping centers are a natural place to congregate. Shopping may make people feel important. Some people pride themselves on their knowledge of the marketplace.

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The experience of acquiring the good may be quite different off line versus online. Electronic marketers can reach people anywhere but there are also issues as well. This slide lists the benefits and limitations on online retail sites.

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Retail environments are important for attracting shoppers and keeping them in the stores. Innovative merchants use four kinds of theming techniques. These are listed on the slide. Landscape themes rely on associations with images of nature, animals, and the physical body. Bass Pro Shops is an example of a landscape theme. Marketscape themes build on associations with man-made places. The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas is an example of a marketscape. Cyberspace themes build on information and communications technology. eBay uses this approach. Mindscape themes draw on abstract ideas and concepts, fantasy, and often possess spiritual overtones. Day spas might reflect a spiritual theme.

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Stores can have very clear personalities. We can refer to the store personality as store image. Some of the important dimensions of a store’s image are location, merchandise suitability, and the knowledge and congeniality of the sales staff. Intangible factors like interior design, the types of people seen in the store, and store return policies can also influence store image.

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Mental budgets for grocery trips are typically composed of both an itemized portion and in-store slack. This means they typically decide beforehand on an amount they plan to spend, but then they have an additional amount in mind (slack) they are willing to spend on unplanned purchases—if they come across any they really want to have. A POP can be an elaborate product display or demonstration, a coupon dispensing machine, or an employee who gives out free samples of a new cookie in the grocery aisle.

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A buyer-seller situation is like many dyadic encounters. During the relationship, the parties establish their own roles in the relationship through identity negotiation. Salespeople can be more effective if they have authority and expertise, and even if they have incidental similarities, such as a shared experience, to the buyer.

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An image shown in the book is a drawing of how one consumer depicted an impulse buyer. How would you depict yourself as an impulse buyer?

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Our overall reactions to a product after we’ve bought it—what re-searchers call consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction (CS/D)— obviously play a big role in our future behavior. According to the expectancy disconfirmation model, we form beliefs about product performance based on our prior experience with the product or communications about the product that imply a certain level of quality.

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During lateral cycling, one consumer exchanges something he or she owns for something the other person owns. The underground economy in the form of flea markets and other used-product sales formats is a significant element in the U.S. market. The new trend of recommerce (a play on the term e-commerce) shows that many consumers want to squeeze more value out of their possessions by selling or trading them. This focus has given birth to the swishing movement, where people organize parties to exchange clothing or other personal possessions with others.

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