Marketing Principles and Practice - Essay Example

?Marketing Principles and Practice Table of Contents Introduction 3 Buying Behaviour 4 Buying Behaviour and Influences 5 Peer Influence 5 Social Influences 6 Reference Groups 6 Social Media 7 Personality and Self Concept 8 Social Classes 8 Technological Influence 9 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction Consumers seek a range of products and services in their daily buying behaviour that has been recognised in this present trend. With this concern, the modern organisations are highly focusing towards keeping in line with the buyer’s decisions with regard to their preferable and desirable tastes, demographic conditions along with their educational level and certain other similar factors. According to the modern days context, the consumers are highly been encouraged by using different marketing strategies that are implemented by the modern organisations. Therefore, consumers’ buying decision is one of the complex facets for the modern organisations in terms of successfully attaining profitability and customer retention. With due regard to this context, the marketers always seek to identify the various changes of the stimuli that influence the buyers on their purchasing decisions. It is important for the marketers to recognise the characteristics of buying process of the buyers along with their responses according to various stimuli (Voinea & Filip, 2011). The paper intends to discuss the various factors that influence the purchasing decisions of the postgraduate students for fashion products. The impact of the particular buying behaviour influences for gaining competitive advantage towards the marketers has also been highlighted in the discussion. Buying Behaviour According to the study of consumers’ buying behaviour, the fundamental influences are generally focused on certain basic aspects including Cultural, Social, Personal and Psychological factors of a buyer on their purchase decision. However, from the perspective of postgraduate students’ buying decisions, it has been observed that there is a significant variance in terms of buying decisions regarding fashion products within this customer segment. Hence, the buying decisions of the postgraduate students have significantly modernized or evolved accordingly to the modern situational influences such as, influence of peers, social media, benefits of advanced electronic shopping methods and influence of recent trends among others. The modern organisations are significantly conscious regarding the desires of the college or post-graduate student segment. This segment highly involves in acquiring the products according to their attitude and beliefs (Wang & Xiao, 2009). In general, there is a positive attitude which has been observed in the postgraduate students with regard to their purchasing or acquiring of fashion products and advanced services. The customers in that specific segment have more favourable attitudes on buying high-end fashion products. The postgraduate students form a positive or indifferent attitude concerning purchase of fashionable products in keeping with their previous buying experience. Moreover, beliefs regarding the benefits of buying fashionable products generally facilitate to derive an encouraging influence on postgraduate students’ attitudes towards purchasing fashion products. However, the risk of being out of fashion by purchasing products that might not be suitable according to the present trend is a negative influence on postgraduate students. Although in terms of purchasing fashion products personal needs as well as preferences play a dominating role, the various ethical issues that might be negatively associated with a company can create pessimistic influence towards purchasing of that fashion company’s products by postgraduate student segment of customers (Lee, 2009). Buying Behaviour and Influences The buying decision of the postgraduate students is highly focused towards focusing on recent trends along with maintaining attitudinal involvement with the products they acquire. Moreover, there are several major factors that can be observed during the purchasing of fashionable products by the postgraduate customer segment such as: Peer Influence Peer influence is frequently considered as the extent by which peers have an effect and influence on an individual’s thoughts, attitudes as well as actions. There are essentially two types of approaches with respect to the arrangement of social influences. The first approach comprises three kinds of influences such as informational, value expressive along with utilitarian influence. The informational influence is observed to increase knowledge of an individual according to the environment of purchased products. The factor also involves observing other individuals purchasing behaviour or vigorously seeking for information from the expert individuals. With regard to the perspective of utilitarian influence, the aspect involves observing the products or services that are preferred by other individuals or groups in terms of being favourable among the groups or community. On the other hand, the value expressive influence refers to the motivational expressions about the buying process of any individual. The value expressive method enhances the purchasing concept of the buyer in terms of purchasing any product or service (Makgosa & Mohube, 2007). The other approach of peer influence factor facilitates to distinguish two major drivers such as informational and normative. Informational influence has been classified on the first approach of peer influence factors. The significant features of informational influence consist of message substances, source integrity along with reliability. However, the normative influence is correlated with the references groups’, for instance social importance as well as manifestation are the crucial elements of normative influence (Makgosa & Mohube, 2007). Hence, the marketers need to keep a close watch on the buying behaviour of peers of the post graduate segment of customers to provide them appropriate offerings. Social Influences The social influences are significantly engaged with the buying behaviour of the postgraduate students of any geographic area. The influences involve performing various activities that effectively have a persuading capability on the purchasing decisions of the postgraduate students. According to the present day context, the social influences are essentially structured with various aspects such as: Reference Groups The reference groups refer to the other people who are followed or observed by the customers while selecting a product or service. The reference groups persuade consumer buying behaviour primarily by two aspects, they are: The groups set levels of objective for the purchasing consumer, i.e. they suggest the indications to be followed by their followers The groups define products or services particularly for an individual within the group to escort them towards a distinct lifestyle With this concern, the postgraduate students significantly involves in maintaining the lifestyle that is followed by the reference groups. According to the modern day’s context, the persuasion of the reference group can be determined by the various social influences from family, intimates, religious groups, movie celebrities along with sports groups or persons and musical groups who are highly followed by the postgraduate student segment in their buying decision of products or services (Makgosa & Mohube, 2007). Social Media The social media is one of the major influences on the buying decisions that are made by the postgraduate students in terms of purchasing any fashion products or services. The social media can be determined as a wide platform in terms of acquiring knowledge regarding purchasing or acquiring any product or service. The internet service can be considered as one of the extensive sources to collect information. Moreover, the internet service provides the customers an easy browsing facility to identify their desired products or services and assists the customers to select the appropriate products or services. In recent times, the social networking websites are creating major influences on the customers’ buying decisions. With regard to the technological advancements that are obtained in this era, the young population are highly involved with spending their time on social networking sites in terms of making conversation along with discussing about making any purchasing decision. Hence, the social media is one of the reliable and advanced sources for the young population that include postgraduate students in terms of making their purchasing decisions concerning any fashion product. Furthermore, the social media is one of the effective platforms in order to assemble buyers to recollect about their desirable products and services. Through various social media websites such as, ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ along with ‘Blogs’, buyers tend to gather opinions regarding other people’s viewpoint about any fashion brand. Therefore, any positive feedback concerning any fashion brand from peers in these sites can be of greater significance for a marketer. Thus, the marketer needs to observe the conversations made in these websites to infer about the buyers’ purchasing inclinations to enable certain modifications in their offered fashion products. Moreover, the marketers can encourage feedback by creating their own account/page in the social networking sites to gather customer feedbacks. With the similar context, the social media plays an effective and important role for the customers to facilitate them in making appropriate decisions of purchasing their desired products or services (The Nielsen Company, 2011). Personality and Self Concept Individual personality can be determined as the combination of self characteristics or traits along with social learning that impact on an individual’s attitude or characteristics on their various activities. Personality of any individual consigns psychological makeup and it influences the approach in which an individual responds to his or her social environment. In relation to the modern day context, individual personality can be observed as to be dramatically changing the human behaviour across various situations. People from various social and cultural groups are deviating from their own cultural treads while making fashion product purchase decision and are trying to follow the fashion treads of other cultures. With this concern, the postgraduate students are highly involved towards focusing on developing their own culture or indicating to preserve other sub-cultures that are significantly observed in most of the developed countries in the present era (Indira Gandhi National Open University, n.d.). Social Classes Social class is a position that is determined by the members of the society. Social class can be considered as one of the major influences on customers buying decisions. The buying decision of the customer is frequently affected by the class where the person belongs to. For instance, the upper class people significantly like to acquire high-priced goods or services. With this concern, the purchase decisions of postgraduate students are majorly affected by their affordability and the upper class influence in buying process that persuade them towards purchase high-end fashion brands and expensive products or services. However, the buying decisions of this customer segment rely upon the income level of the individual to acquire those types of products or service (Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2012). Thus, the marketers need to provide varied price ranges of fashion products to tap the market of postgraduate students. Technological Influence The immense growth on the technological sector has enabled to emphasize the rapid growth of online business, the customers buying decisions are progressively being made in computer-based surroundings. E-commerce or Web-based stores present buyers considerable varieties along with a great convenience. The vast growth in terms of the technological advancements makes it convenient for the e-commerce environment using marketers to offer a range of multiple options to its customers in relation to enabling them to make effective purchase decision making. Moreover, the online business provides a large collection of product variances along with presenting an easy way of selecting the appropriate product or service to its customers. However, buyers’ purchasing decisions that are made through the use of online sources require certain technical knowledge to be properly utilised by the consumers. Since, the e-commerce shopping environments continue to develop technological aspects for making it easy to make consumer decision in terms of purchasing products or services, customers are likely to enhance their use of ‘digital’ feature information since that type of information is likely to control the online or web-based information environment (Punj, n.d.). The rapid growth in terms of the electronic advancement is playing a crucial role in the consumer decision making process. However, there are essentially certain areas that can be considered in terms of evaluating the competence of the electronic assistance in consumer decision making process. The information might not be adequate and can create perplexity on the customers’ mind caused by ineffective exploration of the product lines and features. The buying intention can be changed in the mid of searching of product or service due to its electronic intellectual program, which can only display the available products and services by following systems and guidelines. Therefore, it has been observed that the electronic process of decision making cannot identify human behaviour while making their purchase decision only by viewing of products on the display. With this concern, the modern scenario in relation to the postgraduate students in their buying decisions is highly influenced by the e-commerce enterprises. Moreover, the wide spread development of technological factors along with social media have facilitated to make it convenient for this customer segment in their purchase decisions (Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2012). Conclusion With due consideration to the constantly evolving technological advancements, the buying decisions of the consumers are frequently altering as per certain crucial influencing factors. The technological development driven features are highly made use of by a range of customer segments on their buying decisions. In this presently developed marketing process, the buying patterns of the postgraduate student customers are largely influenced by the technological development that is performed by the modern business corporations. The technological influences can be measured as one of the significant aspects in terms of affecting purchase decisions made by the postgraduate students. The social and cultural influences are also substantially affecting this buyer segment in terms of purchasing any product or service. In relation to the evolving social trends, the buying process of the urban or developed country’s students are highly affected by their endeavours to follow the lifestyle of other subcultures or any individual and group. Therefore, buying decisions of acquiring any product or service are also significantly changing in this customer segment. However, the immense changes within the buying decisions of the customers have also become a challenging part for the marketers of the organisations to identify the desirable products or services for this segment of young population. The constant rise as well as alteration in the needs according to the evolving aspirations and requirements as per the recent trends among the postgraduate customer segment can be considered to be a significant confronting factor for the enterprises or marketers with regard to their offerings. References Indira Gandhi National Open University, No Date. Unit 8: Personality and Self Concept. An Overview of Personality: Its Nature and Their Application to Consumer Behaviour. [Online] Available at: http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/35425/1/Unit-8.pdf [Accessed June 25, 2012]. Lee, J., 2009. Understanding College Students’ Purchase Behavior of Fashion Counterfeits: Fashion Consciousness, Public Self-Consciousness, Ethical Obligation, Ethical Judgment, and the Theory of Planned Behavior. College of Health and Human Services of Ohio University. [Online] Available at: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Lee%20Jinhwa.pdf?ohiou1257894300 [Accessed June 25, 2012]. Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2012. Lecture Four: The Importance of Understanding Consumer Lifestyles and Buying Experiences, their Perceptions of Value, Risk and Product Applicability. The Consumer Buying –Decision Process and the Factors that influence it. [Online] Available at: https://www.google.co.in/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=19&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=LECTURE+FOUR%3A+THE+IMPORTANCE+OF+UNDERSTANDING+CONSUMER+LIFESTYLES+AND+BUYING+EXPERIENCES%2C+THEIR+PERCEPTIONS+OF+VALUE%2C+RISK+AND+PRODUCT+APPLICABILITY [Accessed June 25, 2012]. Makgosa, R. & Mohube, K., 2007 Peer Influence on Young Adults’ Products Purchase Decisions. African Journal of Business Management pp. 064-071. Punj, G., No Date. Influence of Electronic Decision Aids On Consumer Shopping in Online Stores. How Electronic Decision Aids Influence Consumer Decisions. [Online] Available at: http://www.crito.uci.edu/noah/hoit/hoit%20papers/influence%20of%20electronic%20decision%20aids.pdf [Accessed June 25, 2012]. The Nielsen Company, 2011. State of the Media: The Social Media Report. Nielsen Social Media Report, 2011. [Online] Available at: http://cn.nielsen.com/documents/Nielsen-Social-Media-Report_FINAL_090911.pdf [Accessed June 25, 2012]. Voinea, L. & Filip, A., 2011. Analyzing the Main Changes in New Consumer Buying Behavior during Economic Crisis. International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories. Vol. 1, No. 1. Wang, J. & Xiao, J. J., 2009. Buying Behavior, Social Support and Credit Card Indebtedness of College Students. International Journal of Consumer Studies. Vol. 33, Iss. 1. pp. 2-10. Read More