Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour from the Indian Firms Perspective - Essay Example

Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour from the Indian Firms Perspective Introduction Consumers are a fundamental element of an enterprise. They are the sole reason entrepreneurs venture into business with the motive of filling a market niche that is often occasioned by unsatisfied consumers. They are the ultimate users of products or goods manufactured and thus they always want goods that gives them utility and value for their money. Therefore, business have to fashion their goods and services in a manner that catches the consumers’ attention to entice and enable them make a purchase. Consumer behaviour is a decision-making process involving other related activities such as evaluation, acquisition and disposition of goods and services. Ideally, consumer behaviour processes starts in the mind of the consumer when he/she tries to look for alternatives that suits his/her needs, in addition to, to the consideration of other relative advantages of a product or service such as cost savings and superior quality (Bijapurkar, 2008). The process goes to the next stage that involves internal and external research concerning a product or service to be purchased. That notwithstanding, there is the post-purchase stage, which is critical since it is the one that determines whether or not the consumers were satisfied, and thus, largely influences their future behaviour to consume or not to consume a product or service (Ramesh, 2009). Businesses tend to focus more on the post-purchase stage as it determines whether their products have been successful or not. Essentially, it is at this phase that the performance of a good or service is ascertained. In some instances, the people who make purchases are not the actual consumers of the products; thus, advertisers need to understand the roles of users in order to efficiently place their advertisements in a formidable manner to attract consumers (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2008). Cultural factors India is a demographically vast country with a rich cultural diversity. The Hindu culture is, however, segmented based on the geographical dispersion of the nation. For instance, the cultural practices in Northern India are not similar to those in Southern or Western India. Culture is a complex term, which encompasses tradition, cultural beliefs, morals, as well as general knowledge of a particular society. It is the culture that identifies or distinguishes people from different backgrounds since they will have various thoughts and beliefs concerning contemporary issues (Majumdar, 2010). Cultural diversity plays a significant role in influencing the consumer behaviour of individuals, thus it is prudent for an advertiser to obtain prior knowledge of the cultural perspective of a society before launching their products because this can enable them to make informed choices concerning what the people believe and to what extent their cultures influence their needs and consumption behaviour. The Indian culture is highly segmented, and thus advertisers need to diversify their services to satisfy individual needs in the market (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2008). A marketing strategy that is deployed in Northern Indian will not likely to yield the same success in Southern or Western India due to the cultural differences that exist between the regions. Therefore, the advertisements should be customised to fit into the cultural perspective of that particular group of people. For instance, in Northern Indian ladies are used to wear skirts and blouses as opposed to the South where long dresses are preferred. Thus, marketing dresses in the South will not be viable as the advertisers will be appealing to the wrong audience since their culture is not fashioned in that manner (Sumathi and Saravanavel, 2003). Contrary to the other regions such as America and United Kingdom, where culture tends to be uniform across geographical boundaries of the nations and thus the advertising firms do not need to customize their ads based on cultural differences but rather can target specific market segments based on factors such as age, level of income, education etc. Social Factors The social factors play a crucial role in determining the consumer behaviour decisions. To best address social issues, the Indian advertisement firms have conducted market research to determine the specific social matters that influence consumer behaviour. In that light, they came up with three elements that they deemed crucial influencers of consumer behaviour decisions, which include social class, social parameter and social group influences. (Sarangapani, 2009). Social setting are factors such as; education, occupation, cultural context, and an individual’s level of income. All these elements directly influence the purchase decisions that a consumer ought to make in a given situation (Bijapurkar, 2008). For instance, education will enlighten consumers with other market issues, which conventional consumers lack. Items like value added services and after sale services are some of the considerations educated consumers look for before making a purchase decision. Therefore, the firms have segmented their markers carefully to deal with each cluster of customers depending on their level of income, education, as well as their job description (Majumdar, 2010). Conversely, social class denotes the groups of people that an individual socialises with, shares values or any other elements that they may have in common. Members of these groups tend to demonstrate a typical consumer behaviour pattern. The firms will often offer similar services to these group of people since the needs of one individual will similarly be replicated by the rest. Finally, the social group influences are often groups of people that a consumer relates to, and whose purchasing patterns will influence the rest for instance; family members, members of a political grouping or even colleagues at your workplace. To address this element advertising firms will focus their efforts more on the group influences since their buying decisions will later be replicated to the other consumers (Bijapurkar, 2008). For this reason, it is imperative to note that India is a high power distance and collectivist nation or culture, which values groups and thus the groups and the social class that an individual belongs influences his /her purchasing decision. Therefore, advertisers in the Indian market will need to customize their ads for the different consumer segments in the Indian market based on social class and group influence. Their ads should demonstrate collectivism but for the different groups of social classes. On the other hand, unlike the Indian market, most Western nations such as UK and U.S. are individualistic and low power distance nations. Therefore, advertisers will need not to customize their ads for the different market segments because consumers perceive each other as equals and often fight for equality (Soares, Farhangmehr & Shoham, 2007). Conversely, consumers in this markets make individual decisions to purchase and not due to group influence. Thus, advertisers will need to postulate individuals or products in their ads with uniqueness to be able to attract the consumers. Psychological Factors Marketing is a psychological process that involves advertising firms manipulating the perception of consumers into buying goods and services. Consumer behaviour is a process that is initiated in the mind before an individual finally makes a decision about buying a good and later maintain brand loyalty. A number of psychological factors play a role in influencing the kind of decisions that consumers make (Sumathi and Saravanavel, 2003). It is these factors that Indian advertising firms focus on to ensure their activities yield the anticipated results. Price is one of the crucial determinants that people often check before they can make purchases (Sarangapani, 2009). Psychological buying is when the advertising firms reduce the prices by a single unit to make the prices more appealing in the sense that they seem to be cheaper but in the real sense they are not; for instance, a dress that cost $100 will be advertised at $99. The latter is more appealing as the buyers will perceive it to be cheaper as compared to the former but in the real sense there is just a negligible difference between the two prices. Relatively, based on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory it is prudent that consumers will tend to satisfy the primary needs first before the other secondary or rather luxurious wants (Ramesh, 2008). Thus, consumers in rich countries focus on the highest needs while those in poorer nations will tend to satisfy the lower needs. India is a developing country that has an equal measure of the affluent and the poor thus the advertisers conduct the marketing of goods and services depending on the market segment that they are targeting. Case in point, in Calcutta slums the firms will focus on selling the primary items while in wealthy suburbs like Mumbai the firms will shift to the highest needs since the consumers there have reached the self-actualisation level (Majumdar, 2010). The approach would not be utilized in other regions for instance Dubai where majority of the inhabitants are affluent people. Their level of disposable income is very high thus they can spend huge sums of money on luxury or secondary needs. This segment of consumers always want to be associated with expensive brands and thus if they get into a store and find two dresses one going for $1000 and the other one for $999 they will opt for the former as they associate prestige to expensive items. Conversely, in other regions like Kenya or Nigeria despite the same dresses being advertised with fixed prices for instance $200 and $197 most customers will pick the cheapest but still make a trade bargain to buy it for a lesser price. In this case firms tend to make a slight adjustment on the prices to accommodate for a bargain from the buyers since it is almost certain that they will have to bargain. References Bijapurkar, R., 2008. Winning in the Indian market: understanding the transformation of consumer India. Singapore, John Wiley & Sons (Asia). Hoyer, W. D., & Macinnis, D. J., 2008. Consumer behavior. Mason, OH, South-Western. Majumdar, R., 2010. Consumer behaviour: insights from Indian market. New Delhi, PHI Learning. Ramesh Kumar, D., 2009. Consumer behaviour and branding: concepts, readings and cases. New Delhi, Pearson Education. Ramesh Kumar, S., 2008. Conceptual issues in consumer behaviour: the Indian context. Delhi, Pearson Education. Sarangapani, A., 2009. A Textbook on rural consumer behaviour in India: a study of FMCGs. Bangalore [u.a.], Univ. Science Press. Soares, A. M., Farhangmehr, M., & Shoham, A., 2007. Hofstede's dimensions of culture in international marketing studies. Journal of business research, 60(3), 277-284. Sumathi, S., & Saravanavel, P., 2003. Marketing research and consumer behaviour. New Delhi, Vikas Pub. Read More