Relation between Geography and Consumer Behavior in China - Essay Example

In recent days, the entire world has become a marketplace, and the entire population of the world has turned into customers, thanks to technology. It used to be a complex job to sell clothing and accessories in a foreign country even a few decades back. Today the advancement of technology has made it possible to bring customers across the world to the virtual shop where they can browse, select, try and make payments without being physically present at the store.

This technological advancement has, in turn, fuelled the amount of rivalry among firms, and every firm has continuously adapted the process of innovation to draw customers. The production and consumption cycle highly stimulate a country’s economy on the one hand. On the other hand, the cycle of production and consumption is totally dependent on the demand of the customers and the supply of goods by the marketer according to those demands. Therefore, every business's key objective is to satisfy its customers and supply them with the demanded products and services.

If a business fails to provide the necessary goods and services to its customers, the customer base shifts to the substitute market, thus making the business lose its market share, which proves to be a devastating outcome for the firm. Therefore each firm tries hard to retain their existing customer base because it is believed that a satisfied customer is equal to an advertisement for the company and retaining the existing customer is more profitable than replacing them with new ones.

(Hawkins 2010). It is, however, a difficult task to understand what exactly satisfies a customer ('Customer is KING' 2010). Some might get attracted towards a lower price, while others might feel that a lower price resembles cheaper quality. As a result, it becomes difficult for the firm to assess the customer’s expectations and fix the price accordingly because every customer has different needs. Thus the firms must study the market within which it sells its products and divide the market according to the needs and preferences of the customers (Bazerman 2001).

The theme of the thesis deals with the topic “What role does geographical location and brand play in influencing consumer’s behaviour?” Further, the research involves recognition of the consumer behaviour of China, their perception towards Country of Origin and their purchase pattern towards the famous furniture manufacturer, IKEA. To proceed with the given topic, we need to discuss the various aspects of consumer behaviour in detail. Consumer Behavior symbolizes the total of the buyer’s choice regarding the possession, utilization, and nature of products, activities, services, ideas, people, experiences, and decision-making units (Hoyer & MacInnis 2008).

Consumer Behavior is a domain that covers all the aspects of buying, be it a tangible product or an intangible service. It is a dynamic, complex, multi-facet process, and the marketer makes all the marketing decisions based on the assumptions made about the behaviour of the consumers. Consumption might take place due to numerous causes. The prime cause is the fulfilment of a need, goal or value.