Differences in Buying of Men and Women When They Go for Shopping - Research Paper Example

Running Header: Marketing Behavior Assignment 2 Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code & Name: Date of Submission: Word Count: 2354 Executive Summary Buyer or consumer behavior is the study of organizations, groups, or individuals and procedure they put in place to pick, use, secure, and dispose of services, products, ideas or experiences to meet needs and the influences that these processes have on the society and buyer (Engel, Kollat, & Blackwell, R 1988). Companies can meet needs effectively if they properly understand and recognize their consumers. According to Perner (1999), behavior of consumer have been discussed through marketing psychology of motivation, perception and interpretation, learning and memory, attitudes and attitudes changes, groups and peer pressure and personality, self concept and emotion. This report has covered on male and female differences in buying behaviour of consumers when they go out to buy clothing products. To attain this, research was performed across the entire market. The results are used to evaluate the differences existing between men and women mostly in terms of how they buy, when, where and when. Contents Executive Summary 2 Contents 3 Marketing Behavior Assignment 2 4 Introduction 4 Perception and Interpretation 6 Psychological Theories 7 Method: Collection of Data 9 Discussion and Recommendations 9 Differences in Buying of Men and Women When Shopping Clothing 9 Behavior of Buying 12 Women Behavior of Buying 12 Buying Behavior of Men 13 Conclusion 15 References 16 Appendices 18 Marketing Behavior Assignment 2 Introduction The apparel retailing industry has life cycle which is very short and retailer can easily make losses if he fails to move with upcoming trends and fashions. This industry requires the fashion store or retailer to understand what is the new fashion and trend for both male and female in order to make sure that money is not lost through wrong investment. The expression of idea of a person and dressing relationship is a complex issue (Fischer & Arnold 1994, p. 173). It can be understood in persons’ everyday life through repeatedly use of clothing which is similar in tendencies of fashions, colors and brands among others. A lot of persons utilize colors and contrasts to reveal feelings as per their mind state. Therefore, properties of the products, such as individuality, comfort and design have role of making decision on buy behavior of apparel, which exhibit variation relying on a number of factors, mainly on gender. It is widely accepted that behavior of consumer is vital key to success of current marketing. Behavior of buyer helps to understand the consumer psychology of how they chose, reason, feels, and thinks among varying alternatives of products (Eagly, Alice & Shelley 1993). It also helps to understand how consumer psychology is influenced by person surroundings such as media, signs, family and culture. Consumer behavior is vital in making decisions of marketing and shopping. Through behavior of consumer, it is possible to know how strategies of decision and motivation of consumer vary among products that vary in their level of interest or importance that they contain for the buyer. Also, marketers can improve and adapt their campaigns of marketing and strategies of marketing to reach the customer in a more efficient way. The area of behavior of consumer is associated with wide and various viewpoints and it is founded on science of interdisciplinary. Therefore, consumer behavior understanding can attract various areas of disciplines, such as genetic anthropology, physio-pyschological, social cultural psychology and psychology. There are particular aspects of behavioral theory that have influence on the fashion retailing and they include motivation, perception and interpretation, learning and memory, attitudes and attitudes changes, groups and peer pressure and personality, self concept and emotion. Retailers and other marketers are only concerned in motivation if it is associated with behavior of consumer purchasing. This behavior is associated with a motive of a consumer wishing to get the service or goods in question and it is a behavior related to goal. Altitude is a set of processes of thoughts that available consumer is associated with in purchasing or potential purchase. It is hard to alter the attitude once it is instilled in the consumer (Moore-Shay, Elizabeth & Richard 1988, pp. 466). A fashion retailer may try to change negative attitude through public relation programs and promotion appeals. In perception of consumer, the marketer is concerned with how consumer perceive and react to goods or services in matters such as quality, image, price and aesthetic, because services and goods not only appear in practical terms, but also the way they are perceived by the buyer in order to satisfy needs. Learning is the change in the organization of long lasted behavior or/and memory of the buyer. Memory varies in time period on a continuum from very short to very long term. Memory of sensory involves stimulus storage that a person may not notice, for example, the advertisement color at some meters away. Consumer rehearsal is required for the idea to stick into memory for a long term. Therefore, it is vital to improve the memorability of the information content. Since consumers are social human being, they seem to have great influence on each other. Group and peer pressure will cause person to have another person who he compares against himself (Nunnally & Bernstein 1994). Group may be inspirational, associative or dissociative reference group. Self concept and personality shows how one thinks, other persons view him, and how he views himself. This is paramount to the marketers because it relates to how consumer buys and consumers products. It is important to study perception and interpretation and psychological theories in fashion retailer in order to understand consumer behavior to the fullest. Perception and Interpretation Perception is associated with being assigned to stimulus of the consumer (Demirdjian & Senguder 2004, p. 351). The fashion retailer is required to understand the consumer perception since it is affected by product nature. Fashions of clothes can take a pivotal role if they are accurately concern to give pleasure or gratification through hedonic or aesthetic elements that have rapid effects of altering mood. Such pleasures can be produced through combining various experiences of sensory such as visual, tactile, olfactory auditory and thermal sensory. A clothing fashion that exhibits such sensory plays an efficacious and primitive role in distracting attention from poor external stimuli. Fashion also produce emotions such as optimism, efficacy and hope associated with management of daily distress, stability of emotions and capability of a person to handle problems of life. Babin, Darden & Griffin (1994, p. 479) argued that apparel retailer can acquire consumer through establishing a firm brand that is self connected by utilizing its capability to give hedonic or aesthetic pleasure. Clothing that does not produce noises while walking, have relaxing contact, appealing colour, well scented clothes with warmth and linen that is soft will direct focus on the self, pleasure and hedonic or aesthetic pleasure. An organized, visually clean and environment that is friendly will arouse senses; provide powerful properties of altering mood and direct attention on one self. Psychological Theories Buyer behavior is the study of organizations, groups and individuals and the way they go about to dispose, use, secure, and select goods and services, ideas or experiences to satisfy wants and effects that these processes have on the society and consumers. Eagly, Alice & Shelley (1993) stated that, psychology is one of the major factors that help to understand the behavior of consumer since buyer behavior deals with attitudes, beliefs, group, culture and emotions. Findings on emotion within the market have produced three approaches: approach of cognitive appraisals, the approach of dimensions and approach of categories. The approach of categories classifies emotions around models and looks at their varying effects on consumer related behavior. The approach of dimensions utilizes the affective dimensions of level and valence of stimulus to differentiate between emotions and impact they produce to the behavior of consumer. Approach of cognitive appraisals utilizes underlying evaluative roots and motivation of emotions to describe their effects on behavior of consumer (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer 1999, p. 185). The approach suggests that underlying situation evaluates things like certainty and desirability combination to produce particular emotions. This approach is used to describe how a wide part of emotions, including those with same arousal and valence levels, are produced and how they result to varying responses of consumer behavior. The approach of cognitive has been important in studying the responses of emotions of consumers in the market. Approach of cognitive appraisals gives a more comprehensive detail of behavior responses of consumer in regard to emotions more than other approaches. There exist likelihood to miss attitudes and beliefs held at implicit or conscious level that are important to evaluate behavior of the consumer. Also retaining of person’s memory on experiences of the consumers, will move both preference and aversion toward the goods and services. Behavior of aversion is tendency of consumers to avoid particular things made for them. The implicit memory is paramount to issues of its ability to store and process information. As we walk through life, the implicit memory records a large amount of information from our vicinity. Thousands of encounters that we have had in the entire life are preserved in a specific part of system of memory and can be rapidly retrieved to aid us in tailoring a feeling or intuition about what is right or not right for us. Most of the occasions, consumers chose brand intuitively and can not explain why they made the decisions. According to attitudinal model, behavior of consumer is mainly influenced by intention. The culture is the major internal factor that makes the behavior of human beings. It is as a result of style of living, which is borne after fitting to the surroundings, things and people through generations. The impact of culture on life of people is so huge to an extent of affecting the choices and motives when shopping or consuming. Culture comprise of three sections: culture, social class and subculture (Chang 2005, p.261). Individual characteristics and experience of different persons are combined through group interaction. In order to create a small group or subgroup, individual finds a person who is much more matched to himself. Group affects processing of consumer decision and information. Method: Collection of Data Concerning this task, it was chosen to carry out a secondary research. In secondary research, information gathered by others is searched and evaluated. The advantage is that it is not required to go asking people questions since the information is already recorded and published. Discussion and Recommendations Differences in Buying of Men and Women When Shopping Clothing To find the answer to the question emanating from this task, its important to exhibit the data involving the hypothesis test and later reinforce the results through descriptive statistics. The analysis starts with finding out whether there exist differences of behavior among men and women when buying apparel. Through evaluation of data acquired by the H1 test hypothesis (there exist differences in the buying behavior of consumer according to the sex), women and men exhibit varying behaviors. There are number of factors that affect the clothing buying behavior among men and women. From findings, the following factors were confirmed to have influence: fashion magazine publicity, economic situations of consumer, promotions, apparel price, major events publicity, catalogues and magazines of women. The data obtained from secondary sources is analyzed in two tables where hypothesis is not rejected (there are differences in buying behavior of the consumer in relation to sex). There exist significant statistical variations on regard to factors that put effects on the purchasing decision of apparel depending if it is a man or a woman and they are: i. Fashion magazine publicity ii. Magazines of women iii. Catalogues publicity iv. Publicity in outdoors v. Major events publicity vi. Economic situations of consumer vii. Presence of sales promotion The reasons for a consumer to buy particular clothing, depending if it a woman or a man, are: wardrobe combination and linking brand with particular status. Table1.Results of factors influencing buying decisions of consumers (Susana et al. 2008). Behavior of Buying After considering the differences of purchasing patterns between women and men, it is possible to analyze which types of variations in terms of: when, where and what the consumer buyers. Women Behavior of Buying Price, brand, composition and design are factors used to analyze what a woman buys. From the analysis it is found that jean of Mango are highly preferred regarding brand, design and price. Table 2: Results of women buying decision between tunic and jeans (Susana et al. 2008). Buying Behavior of Men The table below shows analysis of the preferences of male consumers on what they purchase regarding composition, price, brand and design. The pull and bear jeans are the choice number one in every question. Table 3: Results of men buying decision between t-shirts and jeans (Susana et al. 2008) Regarding on how buyers purchase the products, it is also noted that most of women go to shop on impulse and men do it on necessity. There is variations between ladies and men concerning where one end up shopping. Women prefer to shop in store offering attractive factors such as low price, followed by quality of product and variety of product. Men follow the same trend but in different order, where product quality is first, then price and lastly variety. Table 4.Results of aspects that buyer considers during shopping (Susana et al. 2008). It is recommended that the clothing retailer understand the factors that attracts both male and female consumer. Also the retailer should be able to known which products are appropriate for each gender and this is possible through marketing psychology. The research can be enhanced by carrying out primary research through interviews and visits to apparel stores. Conclusion Perception and interpretation plays an important role while formulating marketing strategies because they serve as stimulus to the consumers. The consumer can achieve satisfaction from purchased products through hedonic or aesthetic elements. Pleasures can be produced through combining various experiences of sensory such as visual, tactile, olfactory auditory and thermal sensory. Psychology is important in fashion retail because it will help to understand the behavior of consumer since it concerns attitudes, beliefs, group, culture and emotions. From the results, it is clear that there are differences on the apparel buying behavior of consumers according to sex. Also both women and men highly consider clothing that address their physical attributes. Men first consider comfort, the satisfaction and lastly, quality, while ladies consider satisfaction, comfort and lastly function. Men do shopping on necessity while ladies do it through impulse. References Babin, B, Darden, W, & Griffin, M 1994, ‘Work and or fun: Measuring hedonic and utilitarian shopping value’, Journal of Consumer Research, no.20, pp. 473-481. Bagozzi, R, Gopinath, M, & Nyer, P 1999, ‘The role of emotions in marketing’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 27, no.2, pp.184-206. Chang, L 2005, ‘The study of subculture and consumer behaviour: An example of Taiwanese University students' consumption culture’, Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, Hollywood, vol. 7, no.2, pp.258-265. Demirdjian, Z, & Senguder, T 2004, Perspectives in Consumer Behaviour: Paradigm Shifts in Prospect, Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, Hollywood, vol. 4, no 2, pp. 348-356. Eagly, Alice & Shelley C 1993, The Psychology of Attitudes, Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Engel, J, Kollat, D, & Blackwell, R 1988, Consumer Behavior, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Fischer, E, & Arnold, S 1994, ‘Sex, gender identity, gender role attitudes, and consumer Behavior’, Psychology & Marketing, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 163-183. Moore-Shay, Elizabeth S. & Richard J 1988, ‘Intergenerational influences in the formation of consumer attitudes and beliefs about the marketplace: Mothers and daughters,’ Advances in Consumer Research, vol.15, pp. 461-467. Nunnally, & Bernstein, I 1994, Psychometric theory, New York: McGraw-Hill. Perner L 1999, Consumer behavior: The psychology of marketing, University of California, viewed 6 July 2010, Susana et al. 2008, ‘Consumer buyer in fashion retailing’, Empirical Evidences, University of Beira Interior, pp. 401-411 Appendices Table1. Results of factors that influence buying decision of consumers (Susana et al. 2008). Table 2: Results of women buying decision between tunic and jeans (Susana et al. 2008). Table 3: Results of men buying decision between t-shirts and jeans (Susana et al. 2008) Table 4.Results of aspects that buyer considers during shopping (Susana et al. 2008). Read More