Understanding the Consumer - Term Paper Example

Contents Contents Introduction 2 Definition of Consumer 3 Consumer Behavior 4 Personality 5 Purchase decisions 5 Motivation 7 Motivation and Purchasing Decision 8 Goals & shopping motivation 9 Decision Making 10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction Research studies, since 1970s, continuously focused on finding the linkages between the consumer products and their potential correlation with the "consumption related attitudes" (Orepsa, 1995) thus there is a great body of knowledge available which strongly predict the role of different motivations that exist when consumers decide to make a buying decision. In order to effectively devise and manage marketing strategies, it is very critical that the firms must take into consideration the very psychology behind the decision of making any purchase by consumers. There are various elements which define the overall psychology of purchasing including demographics, family, and income etc. however behind all these characteristics, the motivation to buy is one of the key variables which contribute towards shaping the overall strategies for marketing. Thus, analyzing and understanding different shopping motivations allow managers to help them better their segmentation policies as well as the development of new and more penetrating retail marketing strategies. (Wagner,2007). The traditional research in this area however, remained focused on the interaction of consumers with the physical market places to make their buying decisions however, over the period of time, as the new forms of markets and marketing evolved, the scope has broadened and currently research in this area also focus on the different motivations of consumers while making purchase decisions in different market settings. This paper will attempt to study and anlyse different shopping motivations that exists when consumers make buying decisions. This paper however, also takes into consideration Means End Chain and its links to the Goal Directed Theory while presenting analyzing various shopping motivations. Definition of Consumer According to dictionary definition of Consumer, a consumer is one who consumes an economic good. A consumer is generally thought of as a person who identifies a need or desire accordingly makes a purchase. Thus, a consumer is a person who first identifies or feels the need for something and then after going through a mental process decides to whether buy or not buy certain goods or services. Thus a consumer is generally thought of as a person who identifies a need or desire accordingly makes a purchase. However, there are different factors which influence that mental process of deciding what to buy and what not to buy and a good marketer will always attempt to understand that mental process and then design strategies to influence that decision making process. Thus, no matter who are we in life (a child, a parent, a student, a worker, a business owner, a lover, etc.) we buy and consume things which makes us consumers. We buy different products (tangible and intangible) for many reasons (to eat, to wear, to watch, to play, to travel, to keep in good shape and to feel secure). Hence, the consumption activity is essential and primary part of our daily life and we as consumers attempt to consume according to our needs, wants and purchasing power. (David, 1997). However, there is a certain process, as defined above, which takes place in consumer's mind while evaluating a purchase. That process or behavior is often called consumer behavior. Consumer Behavior Consumer behavior can be easily be described as how consumers feel, think, create reasons to select between different alternatives like different brands of goods, or different products. Thus in its essence, consumer behavior is how the external and internal factors influence a consumer to make a buying decision. Consumer behavior, therefore, not only involve the interaction of the consumer with its environment but it also attempt to comprehend the influence of that environment on the decision making process of the buyers. Thus, consumer behavior, in its essence, is a much larger concept than that of simple purchasing at it attempts to capture a much larger quantum of variables which directly and indirectly influence the consumer behavior. Solomon, et.al (2006), is also of the view that consumer behavior is all about having and being and that having and being carry greater significance and impact on our lives because it affects the way we feel about ourselves and others. While discussing the consumer behavior, from a psychology perspective, it has also been observed that the main focus has remained on the core basics of the psychology i.e. the nature versus the nurture phenomenon. Consumer behavior seems to be shaping by both the variables as it is not only driven by the nature of a consumer but also through the external environment (nurture) within which a consumer is brought up or spend significant portion of her life. Personality It is believed that personality is one of the most important parts of a person's psychological life. Ideally, personality is concerned with whether the person is happy, sad, energetic, moody etc however what is most important is the reflection of that personality in our external environment. Freud's concepts of personality revolved around three main distinguished characteristics. Freud attempted to define or encapsulate personality into following: 1) The id 2) The ego 3) The super ego Whole Freudian theory of personality therefore revolves around defining these three structures of human personality. The id is what is called the individual instincts with no or very little contacts with the reality whereas ego is something which uses reasoning as a tool for decision making whereas superego of a person is related with the moral values of a person. Thus from a marketer perspective, the ego portion of a consumer's personality plays a greater role into making purchasing decisions and it is that portion of a consumer's personality which derives and motivates consumers to make rational or irrational choices to buy. Purchase decisions Before discussing different motivations when consumers make buying decisions, it is important that purchasing decisions made by the consumers are defined and understood. Typically there are four types of purchase decisions which normally a consumer makes. (David, 1997). These are: 1) Minor New Purchases 2) Minor Re-purchases 3) Major New Purchases 4) Minor New Repurchases A Minor new purchase is a purchase when a consumer purchases something new but that purchase does not held a major significance for the consumer whereas a minor re-purchase are routine purchases like groceries, etc which consumers often purchase but giving them any significant thought to them. Similarly, a major new purchase involves a complete new purchase because it not only has the major significance for the consumer but consumer also does not have the previous experience of making similar purchase. This type of purchase also require a proper thought process and consumer need to formulate a clear and accurate description of what is required to be purchased considering all the factors which influence that purchase. However, on the other hand, major repurchase decisions are also significant however, consumer, because of having previous experience of making the similar type of purchase, feel more confident and there is a relatively low decision making process involved behind this type of purchase decision to make. However, behind all purchase decision there is always motivation and a concrete goal to achieve by making the purchasing decisions Motivation Motivation is one of the basic ingredients of a human life without which the survival of humans may not be possible in a more humane and respectable way. In much simpler sense, motivation is an ambition to achieve a particular goal, whether it is general or a specific goal. The derive behind achieving that goal the way one wants it to achieve is what motivation is therefore in our daily lives, motivation plays a great role in shaping our different responses to the events of our lives. Looking at motivation from a psychological point of view, motivation is related to a big extent to human needs. Motivation occurs when a need is stimulated. A good example which proves the relation between motivation and needs, is if we go for food shopping when we are hungry we end up buying more things or at least we spend more time thinking (motivated) about several items which were not on our shopping list. Needs can be functional (a wish to achieve practical benefit, for example when a person chooses to eat green vegetables for nutritional reasons) or may be hedonic - an empirical need, involving emotional responses or fantasies.(Solomon et.al,2006). Thus motivation, when viewed within the perspective of consumer behavior, suggest that when a consumer feels a need for some good or service to buy, the motivational instinct gets stimulated which further derive the consumer to make her buying decisions. Thus, the motivation to achieve and associate with something initiates the purchasing decision. The next section of the paper will discuss different motivations which exist when consumers make buying decisions. Motivation and Purchasing Decision It is argued that human behavior can be grouped into three distinct categories or groups of behaviors namely motivation, cognition and learning. Motivation is often categorize as a drive which result into subsequent events which form a particular behavior. (Bayton, 1958). Since motivation results into behaviors and behaviors are often initiated due to any need therefore there is a strong link between the motivation and the needs of a consumer. Wagner (2007) attempted to discuss the shopping motivation and discussed it from the perspective of the Mean end Chains or MEC. MEC is considered as an approach which attempt to define shopping motivation under different abstract conditions thus it is a qualitative technique which is used to evaluate and re-define shopping motivation from a different perspective as it employs "cognitive structures of individuals" by inter-linking different motivation responses of consumers with each other. Thus the focus of MEC is how an individual achieve its desires goals and objectives while doing shopping. For example, a consumer's preferences to buy organic food can be driven by different cognitive processes which force a consumer to adopt certain set of procedures to fulfill or achieve desired goals. What is most interesting, however, is the fact that, MEC while incorporating abstraction into the whole process of shopping motivation, attempt to enlarge the base of motivational factors which influence the purchase decision of a consumer. For example, consumers of organic food may not only intend just to buy the food but expect to derive different associated benefits such as good health, nutritional value etc. thus the very perception behind the buying decision is entirely different from a normal process o f perceiving to buy a product. It is also critical to understand that MEC, because of its greater depth, also attempt to vanish the subtle differences between the purchasing decisions as discussed above as minor purchase and repurchase decisions may also require significant thought and motivational process before making a purchase. The above discussion therefore suggests that the shopping motivation is shaped by goals therefore the subsequent section will discuss how goals play part in purchasing decisions. Goals & shopping motivation It is argued that individuals, over the period of their lives, form certain programs in order to implement their life goals and the principle values they held. Thus in this long and consistent process, goals are often projected as hierarchical in nature because a person attempt to rank or prioritize her goals based on their overall contribution to goals of that particular program in a person's life.(Bay & Daniel, 2003). Thus when a consumer enters into a store to buy organic food, that decision to buy that organic food is based on much larger and already prioritized goal of achieving an optimum level of health and other related benefits. However, if health preferences are not on the list of goals of a consumer than the shopping motivation for buying organic food may be extremely low and buyer may not make a purchase at all. However, a prudent and effective use of MEC theory can help break that hierarchy of consumer's goals by relating the shopping motivations of a consumer directly to the in store attributes especially in a retail marketing set up. (Wagner, 2007). It is therefore important that shopping motivations though can be attributed to different internal and external motivations. Next section will discuss these internal and external motivations. Decision Making There are mainly two types of influences or shopping motivations which contribute significantly to the shopping motivation. These motivations range from our perceptions about world, family, culture sub-cultures etc. However, a decision to buy depends upon the need recognition, search for alternatives and then finally make a buying decision. However, during that process of deciding there are different motivational factors which contribute to this. Firstly, one of the most important factors is our perceptual understanding of the world i.e. how we view the world. As discussed above that the ego of a person's personality makes the rational decision therefore this perceptual map is associated with our ego. How we view ourselves relative to the world defines how we make our purchase decision. Thus from a marketing perspective, to get to a level where perceptual filters of an individual are dissolved, marketers need to push their product message forward which impacts the subconscious of the consumers to make a decision to purchase. Similarly, family is another very strong motivational factor to derive the shopping decisions however; there are strong chances that the family conflict may arise regarding a purchase decision mainly because of different cognitive structures which may result into different shopping motives for each individual.(Lee & Collins, 2000). Culture is another critical factor which creates a strong motivational link between an individual and the purchase decision because the external influence of social groups can significantly influence that process. In case of organic foods, consumer living in a developed country may be more health conscious therefore would prefer to buy organic food because everybody buys organic food however in countries where health consciousness is not so important, consumers may not prefer to make that buying decision. Similarly, children may have a greater role in purchasing decision as compared to certain other cultures- for examples, families from Anglo Saxon cultures may show different shopping motivations as compared to a typical Indian family living in a culture where elders make most of the buying decisions with little or no part played by Children. It is also important to mention that rational choice theory also attempt to define product selection hence product purchasing based on the anticipated satisfaction to be derived from that product. (Weiner, 2000). Conclusion There are different shopping motivations for a consumer to make a purchase decision however that motivation is a hierarchical process consisting of different factors such as needs, goals etc. apart from the internal representation of a facts which motivate a consumer to make buying decisions, there are some external influences also such as family and culture. MEC theory however, attempts to comprehend, qualitatively, most of the abstract elements which contribute towards stimulating the different shopping motivations for a consumer. In order to effectively cater different shopping motivations, marketers therefore need to understand how a common set of personal traits emerge into a certain segment of the market and based on the collective assessment of those motivational factors, design their strategies to better serve their chosen market segments. References 1. Oropesa. R. S. (1995). Consumer Possessions, Consumer Passions, and Subjective Well-Being. Sociological Forum. 10 (2), pp. 215-244. 2. Wagner Tillmann,. (2007). shopping motivation revised: a means-end chain analytical perspective. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 35 (7), 569-582. 3. David A , Statt (1997). Understanding the Consumer. London: MacMillan Business Press. 05. 4. Solomon, Michael & Bamossy, Gary & Askegaard, Soren & Hogg, Margaret K (2006). Consumer Behavior 'a European Perspective'. 3rd ed. Madrid: Prentice Hall. 10. 5. Bayton. James A. (1958). Motivation, Cognition, Learning: Basic Factors in Consumer Behavior. The Journal of Marketing,. 22 (3), pp. 282-289. 6. Bay, Darlene & Daniel, Harold. (2003). The theory of trying and goal-directed behavior: The effect of moving up the hierarchy of goals. Psychology and Marketing. 20 (8), 669 - 684. 7. Lee, Christina Kwai-Choi & Collins. Brett A. (2000). Family decision making and coalition patterns. European Journal of Marketing. 34 (9/10), 1181-1198. 8. Weiner, Brett A.. (2000). Attributional Thoughts about Consumer Behavior. The Journal of Consumer Research. 27 (3), pp. 382-387. Read More