Consumer Decision Making - Essay Example

Consumer decision making Introduction Consumer behaviours are changing rapidly because of the changing life styles and advancements in living standards. It is essential for the entrepreneurs to do careful market researches to evaluate the consumer behaviours properly in order to get deep insights into the changing trends of consumer decision making. Globalization and liberalization have brought many changes in the global trade activities and it is easy for the current consumers to purchase any goods from even foreign countries. These revolutionary polices succeeded in giving the consumers an opportunity to get in touch with the foreign products and they got enough opportunities to compare the quality and prices of the domestic products with that of the foreign products. Such evaluation from the part of consumers may often change their buying habits. Online marketing and e-commerce are growing day by day and based on that the purchasing decisions of the consumers are also changing. In many cases, a purchasing situation occurs out of the fear of losing social recognition or once the existing product goes out of order. Some of the people have blind belief in brand values while others are more practical. Some consumers may seek further assistance from the supplier to improve the performance of the product they purchased. This paper briefly analyses the consumer decision making attributes. Consumer decision making and purchasing behaviour Recognition is a primary psychological need for human beings and hence most of their purchasing decisions were influenced by their desire to get recognition from others. Most of the consumers feel inferiority, if they possess old goods. In many cases, consumers postpone their purchasing decisions until they acquire ample financial resources for executing the purchasing. Once the consumer feels confidence about his/her financial abilities, the next step is to gather information about the product he/she wants to purchase. “Sources of information could be family, friends, neighbours who may have the product you have in mind, and alternatively you may ask the sales people, or dealers, or read specialist magazines. You may even actually examine the product before you decide to purchase it” (Consumer Buying Behaviour, n. d) Most of the people rely on, advertisements in television, news papers, Super markets and internet for the information regarding the product they want to purchase. They will collect information from the friends also. The User’s comments will always be valued more than anything else. Once ample information is collected about a particular product, most of the consumers will search for alternatives in order to compare the product information collected with that of the alternatives. There are many things which can influence the decision making of the consumers. For males, metrosexuality is a factor which affects their purchasing decisions. “Metrosexuality is a term that was used for the first time to describe the urban heterosexual male, with a strong sense of aesthetics, by a British journalist in The Independent, a major British Daily in late 1994” (Sen) Metrosexuality is a term associated with a male individual who have a strong concern for his appearance, and spent time, money and attention to aesthetic details of his exterior. Such men always concerned about their appearances and will wear nice dresses and will adopt new trends in fashion in their life styles. Consumer industry, especially the cosmetic industry is changing because of the evolution of metrosexuality. As per the earlier trends, men were least concerned about fashion and their appearances compared to women and the cosmetic industry focussed mainly on the female community. But the changing trends among men’s fashion concepts forced the consumer industry to concentrate in men’s fashion segment also. Information on the environmental characteristics of products and services is communicated in the market through a range of labels (single issue, multi-criteria, place of origin, etc.) and a diverse and constantly evolving set of what can loosely be called “environmental claims”, often uncontrolled and self declared claims and images (Experts Workshop on Information and Consumer Decision-Making For Sustainable Consumption, 2001, p.4) Consumers are surrounded by millions of information which can influence their purchasing decision making. Some of them might be related to the quality of the product while some others might be related to the beauty of the product. In some cases, information with respect to the environment may also be there. For example, most of the current automobiles claim to be environmental friendly in their advertisements in order to convince the people about their commitments towards environmental protection. Of the environmental information which is available, many of them are informative, confusing, misleading, or irrelevant to the consumers. For example, in order to influence the consumer purchasing decisions, some statutory warning signs made compulsory on the labels of some products by the government. For example, in many countries, on cigarette packets, it is necessary to print the slogan Smoking is injurious to health. But this slogan is often printed only in a small size so that the consumers may not notice it before purchasing it. In other words, the credibility of such statutory warning signals is often questioned. Advertising is another powerful channel which can influence the purchasing decisions of the consumers. Advertising enables product manufacturers to inform consumers about the goods and services they offer in the market. But many of these advertisements are misleading, confusing or over exaggerated. For example, in order to sell a mosquito repellent in Indian market, Bollywood celebrity Vidya Balan claims that the usage of this cream on body is safe. Vidya Balan, the new face for GoodKnight Naturals, says, "When it comes to applying products on my skin, I am very cautious. Goodknight Naturals mosquito repellent cream has unbelievable properties which make my skin feel safe whilst protecting me from mosquitoes during outdoor shoots, and the best part is that it is non-sticky (Chawla, 2009). In the above advertisement, Vidya Balan even smells the mosquito repellent and explains the pleasant smell. It is an accepted fact that most of the mosquito repellent are made out of harmful chemicals. Both smelling and coating it on the body can definitely cause severe health problems. But the repellent manufacturer tries to exploit the consumer weakness with the help of the celebrities like Vidya Balan through this advertisement. Certainly, advertising alone cannot be blamed for the illogical consumer decision making process. At the same time the influence of advertising in taking purchasing a product cannot be neglected. Various surveys and studies have proved beyond doubt that the consumer’s decision making is associated with the effectiveness of the advertising. “The mass media - television, screen, radio, print, and increasingly the Internet - are major conduits of images, advertisements, news and information into the average household” (Experts Workshop on Information and Consumer Decision-Making For Sustainable Consumption, 2001, p.10) In many cases, the friends often influence the purchasing behavior of a person. For example, suppose a person bought an advanced mobile phone. His friend may also buy the same product after watching its performance. In other words, mouth publicity or the behaviors of the peer can influence the purchasing decision very much. Other major things which can affect the consumer decision making are demographic information (e.g., income, educational level of adults in the household, occupations of adults, ages of children, and whether the family owns and rents), the family and the television watching habits etc (Perner 2010). The following illustrations give proper ideas about various parameters associated with purchasing decision making. Both internal and external parameters can affect the consumer decision making. (Perner 2010) Conclusions Consumer decision making is influenced by many factors such as advertising, metrosexuality, brand value like personal beliefs, psychological needs like recognition, changing life styles and philosophy of life, economic conditions etc. Friends can also influence the purchasing behavior very much. The study of consumer behavior is an important thing in the marketing strategy. References 1. Chawla,R (2009), Vidya Balan to endorse GoodKnight cream, [Online], Available at: http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/2009/10/01/13323/index.html [Accessed 11 November 2010] 2. Consumer Buying Behaviour, (n. d) [Online], Available at: http://www.learnmarketing.net/consumer.htm [Accessed 11 November 2010] 3. Experts Workshop on Information and Consumer Decision-Making For Sustainable Consumption, (2001), OECD Environment Directorate Programme on Sustainable Consumption, [Online], Available at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/19/1895757.pdf [Accessed 11 November 2010] 4. Perner L. (2010) CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MARKETING [Online], Available at: http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/ [Accessed 11 November 2010] 5. Sen M (2006), Metrosexuality: The Changing Indian Masculine, [Online], Available at: http://webspace.webring.com/people/gh/husociology1/metro8.htm [Accessed 11 November 2010] Read More