Consumer Food-Buying Behavior - Research Paper Example

Marketing Table of Contents Introduction 3 Importance of Understanding the Consumer’s Decision Making Criterion 3 Factors Influencing Consumer Decision Making for Food Products 3 4 Influence of Social Context on Consumer Food Buying Behaviour 5 Psychological Factors 6 Life Style Factor 6 Culture 7 Conclusion 8 References 9 Bibliography 11 Introduction Developing idea with regards to consumer’s want, need and buying behaviour is the utmost criterion of delivering the successful products (Bized, 2010). In the present era, consumers have developed their own way to decide what to eat and follow a separate mechanism according to the Food Guide Pyramid. Therefore, knowing the food buying behaviour and decision making criterion is very essential. This paper will be initiated with determining the factors affecting the consumers’ food buying behaviour. It will then demonstrate the factors in the perspective of the social context and eventually it will be concluded through assessing the degree to which the social context influences the consumer’s decision making while buying food products. Importance of Understanding the Consumer’s Decision Making Criterion Prior to discussing the factors that influence the consumer’s food buying behaviour, it is important to know the significance of idealising the consumer’s behaviour. According to Olson (1994), consumer behaviour can be considered as the dynamic interaction of the cognition and affect, environmental events and behaviour through which individuals use to demeanour the exchange aspects of their lives (Olson & Preter, 1994). The basic reason behind determining and understanding the consumer behaviour is to develop the marketing strategies for enhancing sales volume. Again the success of a company’s marketing strategy is based upon the reaction of the buyers and that denotes the importance of determining consumer buying behaviour (Study Aids, n.d.). According to Dibb and their fellow researcher (2001), consumer decisions can be categorised into three categories: limited decision making, routine response behaviour and extensive decision making (Dibb & Et. Al., 2001). Factors Influencing Consumer Decision Making for Food Products Fig - 1 Generally, there are many factors that have significant influence on the consumer buying behaviour. At first consumers’ buying behaviour will be discussed and in the later part the aspects that play an important role in consumer’s food behaviour will be discussed. There are few buyers who demands for a sense of belonging and safety while others try to enhance their status level through gaining esteem in their peer’s eyes. It has been revealed from various researches that consumers purchase according to their lifestyles and personality also. Consumers also take care of certain attributes such as products benefits and features, its packaging and method of payment while purchasing the food items. These are common for all the products and services and the attributes that have an effect on the decision making of consumers for food products will be discussed below. Family Situation: Many buying decisions also depend upon the requirement of the family. In that case, it is necessary to know the buying decisions maker of the family and that will again be based upon the family situation. For food products mostly the female members takes decisions but that also has exceptions. For newly married couples, food buying decision might be of both but in case of couple having children, mainly mothers’ make decisions. Teenagers always prefer to choose food products as per their own choice aside from family purchase. Attractive Packaging: Tasting and attractive packaging also matters while purchasing food products but it is mostly applicable for the teenagers and young adults. For adults it hardly matters as they are health and diet conscious (Penn, 2010). Food Safety: Food safety can be considered as the major barrier from the marketer’s side for confronting consumer food buying decisions. Contamination with pathogenic microorganisms creates a barrier for satisfying the requirements of fresh foods and vegetables. Contamination problem has been found mostly with the imported products. Food Habits and Preference: Food preference and habits of the consumer is used to create a barrier for meeting Food Guide Pyramid (FGP) recommendations. Culture and psychology plays an important role in this matter for which consumers are resistant to change their habits and preferences (Asp, 1999). Dietary Guidance: Nowadays a variety of food guides, dietary recommendations has been developed by different governmental agencies and health related organisations (Porter & Et. Al., 1998). Influence of Social Context on Consumer Food Buying Behaviour The factors mentioned above demonstrate the aspects that influence the consumer food buying behaviour. This part of the paper will cover the points that have social context (Brown, n.d.). Psychological Factors This factor can be considered as the strongest determinant of an individual’s eating habit. While selecting food, preference of the consumers has the strongest effect as it determine the satisfaction level. Preference is the outcome of the psychological and physiological development along with the social experience (Asp, 1999). Enhancing the status level or gaining esteem among their peers also falls under the psychological attributes. Life Style Factor The kind of food the consumer will buy is also depended upon the life style and personality of the consumer. For instance, people having a desire to live a healthy and active life should opt for the organic food instead of having sun-tanning products (Penn, 2010). According to Senauer (1991), lifestyle is also important to determine that how much value a consumer place to meet the Food Guide Pyramid (FGP) recommendations (Senauer & Et. Al., 1991). Culture Food habit can be considered as a component of the culture. Dr. Margaret Mead had explained the relationship between the food habits and culture, 50 years ago. According to her, “Food habits are seen as the culturally standardized set of behaviours in regard to food manifested by individuals who have been reared within a given cultural tradition” (Mead, 1943). According to the views of the few scholars food habits are unchanging and static but with the passage of time perception has been changed. And now food habits and food buying decisions are continuously changing as they become accustomed to immigration, travel and socio economic environment (Jerome, 1982). The other factors associated with the decision making procedure for food purchasing are meal pattern, timing and etiquette of eating and most importantly what has been considered as edible as food. Food also denotes regional, ethnic and national identity. Hence, while serving food or selling food products, the above stated factors need to be taken care of by the suppliers or the buyers. For a particular community, different food is symbolised for different occasions and this too influences the buying decisions. Again in contrast certain foods are strictly prohibited during some festive seasons and this should also be considered while assessing the consumer food buying behaviours. The other aspects of the decision making process, which can be taken into account under the social context for purchasing food products are status symbol, emotional bonding and social bonding. Food items are associated with the feelings, emotions of an individual and express them. Food can be also utilised to maintain the social formalities and building up social relationships and in accordance to that the branding and promotional activities of the items can be conducted. Ultimately it can be concluded that all the above mentioned attributes directly or indirectly influence the consumer food buying decisions. Conclusion All the factors affecting consumer food buying behaviour has been described throughout the entire paper. The paper also has considered the degree of influence of social context. Basically, under the social background all the major points can be considered and also discussed. Mainly the healthfulness of the food intakes and the extent to which it satisfies the hunger is the prime decision making criterion. In marketing terms, it can be considered as the need. Taste, formalities prestige factors among others are the secondary requirement of an individual. On this note it can be said that social aspects do not play an important role in the decision making process. But on the basis of the present scenario and changing human requirements it can be concluded that all the secondary factors such as psychological aspects, life style of the consumer and cultural attributes, all have cumulative effect on the decision making procedure of a consumer while purchasing food products. References Asp, E. H., 1999. Factors Affecting Food Decisions Made by Individual Consumers. Food Policy. [Online] Available at: http://113.212.161.150/elibrary/Library/Food/Asp_Factors.pdf [Accessed November 12, 2010]. Bized, 2010. Consumer Buying Behaviour. Reference. [Online] Available at: http://www.bized.co.uk/fme/4-3.htm [Accessed November 12, 2010]. Brown, A., No Date. Categories that Effect Consumer Buying Behaviour. Class Notes. [Online] Available at: http://www.udel.edu/alex/chapt6.html [Accessed November 12, 2010]. Dibb, S. & Et. Al., 2001. Marketing Concept and Strategy. Houghton Mifflin Company. Jerome, N. W., 1982. Dietary Patterning and Change: A Continuous Process. Contemporary Nutrition Newsletter. General Mills, Inc. Mead, M., 1943. The Problem of Changing Food Habits. National Academy of Sciences. Olson, C. J & Peter, J. P., 1996. Understanding Consumer Behaviour. Irwin. Porter, D. & Et. Al., 1998. Educating Consumers Regarding Choices for Fat Reduction. Nutrition Reviews. Penn, S., 2010. The Factors Influencing Consumer Buying Behaviour. eHow. [Online] Available at: http://www.ehow.com/list_6710452_factors-influencing-consumer-buying-behaviour.html [Accessed November 12, 2010]. Senauer, B. & Et. Al., 1991. 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