Consumer Behaviour for Buying a Car - Assignment Example

BUYER BEHAVIOUR ………………………….. College ……………………………… ……………….. Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Consumer Behaviour for buying a car 3 Internal factors that influence consumer decision making process 5 External factors that influence consumer decision making process 7 Religion and ethnic group 7 Age and Gender 7 Social Class 8 Group Influences 8 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction Buyer behaviour is more than just how an individual buys products or services, because it is complex and multi-dimensional process that reflects consumers’ decisions regarding acquisition, consumption and disposal activities. Consumers pay a specific sum of amounts to buy an offering because they expect certain utility or benefit or values that are the want-satisfying power of that offering (Boone and Kurtz, 2009, p. 5), but there can be some factors or motivators that stimulate a decision to buy. This report analyzes internal and external factors that influence consumers’ decision-making process for purchasing a car based on personal experience of a consumer he bought a car recently. This report presents relevant theories about consumer’s buying behaviour to examine how consumer has made his decision to buy a specific brand car and what factors led him to do so. Consumer Behaviour for buying a car A consumer’s behaviour refers to his mental and emotional processes and his observable behavior while he acquires, consumes and disposes a particular product or service. Some consumers in the market tend to make up their minds quickly concerning about whether to buy or not to buy a specific offering while others may take time for decision making as they consider many factors such as other’s feedback and reviews, money-value, durability, quality etc(Cant, Strydom and Jooste, 2009, p. 62). For most consumers, buying a car is the second most priority after investment in house. Some consumers in car market are influenced by brand image, facilities, luxurious and expensive cars etc, whereas others buy car basically for home and family purposes. In each market, different people make different buying decisions. Some companies target people who look for luxurious cars and they set extensive budgets for advertising, adding facilities etc, whereas some other companies provide cars at lowest cost possible and thus they don’t have unlimited budgets for advertising. When a consumer buys a car, the buying process normally goes through five stages. It starts from consumer’s recognition of the need, and then it passes through information search, evaluating alternatives, taking purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation. For impulse buying or purchasing of small items such as food and drinks, consumer do not always follow these stages, and they even skip one or few of these stages. However, these stages are found very evident in consumer’s decision making for buying durables and gig items such as refrigerator, AC and car (Ferrell and Hartline, 2012, p. 117). Before buying car, consumer initially recognizes his need for a car for his own or family or official use. Need recognition occurs when he is faced with an imbalance between actual and desired states that activate his decision making for buying a specific item (Lamb, 2012, p. 90). Then, he continues to gather information from various sources about different brands and their reviews, features, facilities and so on. Companies provide informative advertising mainly because information plays an important role in influencing a consumer. In today’s marketplace, consumers use internet, television, mobile apps etc for searching for most useful and authentic information. Before buying the car, it is very common that most consumers review available products by examining price, features, size, services available, guarantee or other offerings by sellers etc. Once the consumer examines different brands and compares features of all the different brands available to him in the market, he decides what to purchase, when to purchase and from whom to be purchased. Once decided to buy a specific brand of car, he may come to know that one seller of the same brand offers more services and guarantees than others do. Though initial buying decision is almost complete and the consumer already started to use the car, from the marketing perspectives, it is important to assess his experiences and his reviews about whether he is satisfied with it and whether he will go for repeated purchase or to recommend others to buy the same brand. Post-purchase use and evaluation are critically important stages that a marketer has to take in to account. At this point, consumer reviews whether the car is worth the money he paid for. Most surveys and market studies conducted by companies are targeting these reviews so as to further improve features and facilities to increase consumer satisfaction level. All these five stages involved in consumer-decision making process are almost always influenced by internal external factors. These factors that influence consumer decision making are briefly illustrated below: Internal factors that influence consumer decision making process What affects a consumer to choose or not to choose a specific brand is an extremely important matter of concern for marketers especially due to the fierce competition and other economic factors such as globalization and technology advance. According to marketing literatures, a consumer is influenced by internal factors such as motivation, personality, emotion and attitudes. Motivation can be considered as primary reason for consumer’s behaviour. Motivation is the inner force of a consumer that stimulates a behavioural response and provides a specific direction to that response. Motivation is what or why a person is directed to do something (Solomon, 2004, p. 114). For most purchases, more specifically for those higher spending such as refrigerator, car, house etc, consumer has a motivation. Marketers need to understand what motivates his consumers so as to ensure the targeted audience is effectively motivated to buy their offerings. According to Abraham Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, a consumer is motivated to fulfill different needs. He conceptualized that it starts from meeting psychological needs such as food and shelter, and then to meet safety and security needs, social needs, ego needs and ultimately self-actualization needs (Blythe, 2013, p. 35). Need for a car is not psychological or safety or social, but ego need for a good majority of consumers and self-actualization for others. As one friend named Greg James, who recently purchased a BMW new branded car, shared that it was his prestige and status that motivated him to buy an expensive BMW car. According to McGuire’s motivation concept, a consumer is motivated based on four major categories of needs such as cognitive motives, affective motives, preservation motives and growth motives. The motive behind purchasing of BMW car can be referred to as preservation motive as it was his status quo that stimulated his decision to choose that brand (Mullen and Johnson, 2013). Personality affects a person’s decision to buy or not to buy a specific product or service. A consumer’s personality is his unique psychological makeup and it explains how it constantly influences the way he responds to his environment including purchasing and consumption (Solomon, 2004, p. 188). According to the Five-Factor model of personality, a persona’s personality derives from his early childhood learning and his genetics. The five basic traits of personality are Extroversion, Instability, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness to experience (Kardes, Cronley and Cline, 2014, p. 338). The personality influence that caused a consumer to buy BMW might be due to his Conscientiousness. Emotion and attitude are the other two internal factors to influence buyer behaviour. Emotion is intense affect or affect along with psychological arousal (Kardes, Cronley and Cline, 2014, p. 182). Attitude is a learned construct that that represents an individual’s tendency to respond to an object in either favourable or unfavorable manner (Blythe, 2013, p. 174). It is very evident that both emotion and attitude have significantly played in affecting a buyer’s decision to buy BMW car, because his need for status quo and prestige has stimulated an intense psychological arousal and that he has immediately shown a positive respond with his positive attitude to spend for the car. External factors that influence consumer decision making process External factors that can affect consumer’s decision making to either buy or not to buy are external to the individual such as religion and ethnic influences, age and gender, reference groups and social class. Out of these groups influences and social class plays quite important roles in affecting consumer’s decision making. How these factors can affect decision making for buying a car are briefly illustrated below: Religion and ethnic group For some purchases, religion and ethnic influences have significant roles. For instance, buying meats, fashion dresses, wines etc. It is because religion and ethnicity provide people with structured set of beliefs that guide their behaviour in terms of routines, consumption, purchases etc. However, religion and belief do not have any significant influence on the behaviour of a consumer to buy a car or other vehicles. Age and Gender Different age and gender groups respond differently to different brands. However, in today’s turbulent market environment, it is not very clear whether a specific age or gender group is more influenced to buy a specific car brand than others. Social Class Social class implies that some people do possess additional power, wealth and opportunities than others. This causes some consumers to buy certain prestigious goods even if their needs can be fulfilled by other products. Some consumers buy highly expensive sports and other cars only due to that they belong to a better social class and they want to use high-valued products. It was not a reason behind Greg James’s decision to by a BMW car. Group Influences Though the above two factors are found less important in affecting a buyer behaviour to buy his car, group influence, especially reference group is found to play important role in affecting his behaviour. For instance, a reference group is a set of people with whom individual consumer compares himself in developing his own attitudes and behaviour. Some members in the club have already been using BMW car and this has been a drive for Greg James’s decision to buy BMW car. Conclusion This report has presented a brief analysis of consumer behaviour in respect to the personal experience of a consumer, named Greg James, who recently bought a newly branded BMW car. This report described the five stages involved in purchase decision making and has explained Mr. Greg James’s purchase decision based on both his internal and external influences. It was motivation, personality, emotion and attitude that internally affected his decision making whereas it was his reference group that insisted his to buy new branded expensive BMW car. References Blythe, J, 2013, Consumer Behaviour, SAGE Boone, L.E and Kurtz, D.L 2009, Contemporary Marketing, Fourteenth edition, Cengage Learning Cant, M.C, Strydom, J.W and Jooste, C.J, Marketing Management, Juta and Company Ltd, 2009, Ferrell, O. C and Hartline, M, 2012, Marketing Strategy, Sixth edition, Cengage Learning Kardes, F, Cronley, M and Cline, T, 2014, Consumer Behavior, Second edition, Cengage Learning Lamb, C.W., 2012, Marketing, Cengage Learning Mullen, B and Johnson, C, 2013, The Psychology of Consumer Behavior, Psychology Press Solomon, M.R., 2004, Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being, Sixth Edition, Prentice-Hall, Pearson Education, Inc Read More