Failures and successes of any business enterprise depend on the behavior of its consumers. The behavior of the end-user consumer affects both the producer of final goods as well as the intermediaries who distribute the products from the point of production to the point of consumption.
Understanding consumer behavior can play a great role in a business enterprise as it helps identifying its weak points and reflect on the positive aspects which can enable it to win the confidence of the consumers (Sinha, 2012). The consumer behavior and the purchasing decision are closely related. Information about consumer product usage therefore enables organizations to come up with effective ways of designing their products (Turner, 2012).
The amount and types of goods that producers produce depend on the level of consumption of the consumers. The trends in consumer behavior have also been known to reflect the performance of the national economy. When the level of consumption is high, businesses tend to increase in size and profitability (Perner, 2010). An economy that has well performing businesses is able to realize significant growth. Therefore, with a high level of consumption in the economy, the level of economic growth is also high and vice versa.
In order for business enterprises to increase their profitability, they need to develop a strategy that can enable them to market their products to consumers effectively. Most organizations devise marketing strategies whose goal is to enable them understand the consumption trends in the areas where they operate. In order to succeed in this process, businesses need to employ a team of marketers who would focus on learning about the consumption behavior of consumers in different markets (Turner, 2012).
When marketers gain a better understanding of consumers in a particular region, they are able to give relevant market information to their organizations. Organizations are therefore able to make adjustments to the products that they produce thereby making them more appealing to the consumers.
Understanding consumer behavior entails knowing what the real wants of consumers are. This way, a business enterprise can be able to design a product that meets the exact needs of its consumers (Reference for Business, 2012).
Therefore, it is the responsibility of all marketers to ensure that they take time to understand the consumption behavior of consumers so that they can manage to come up with the appropriate marketing strategies that would assist in capturing the attention of the consumers. This way, they would be able to win a large number of consumers thereby increasing the profitability of their organization.
Marketers need to understand that the purchases consumers make are meant to address a number of problems that face them. Whenever a customer consumes a product that addresses his basic needs, he is said to be driven by necessity. Therefore marketers should analyze the behavior of such a consumer based on his needs.
However, there is a different group of consumers who purchase goods based on the attractiveness of the products. It is therefore true that different groups of consumers have varying needs and wants (Delbert, Roger, & Kenneth, 2002).
Based on the different motives for which consumers demand for goods and services, it is the responsibility of marketers to ensure that they understand the unique attributes that consumers look for in the products that they purchase.
They should therefore ensure that their organizations incorporate the attributes that they observe from the customers in order to make the products more appealing to the customers thus increasing the number of sales of the products (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2011).
There are certain products that make it difficult for customers to choose between alternatives because of similarity in the features of them (Sinha, 2012). In this case, it becomes difficult for marketers to sell products to customers since they are not aware of the exact product features that are appealing to the customers.
Sellers often find it difficult to sell their products to customers because they focus a lot of attention on the products that they desire to sell. It is therefore difficult for many business owners to fully understand the reasons why certain customers remain inclined to specific products that are offered by other business enterprises.
This issue brings in the need for businesses to hire marketers who would concentrate on identifying the reasons why consumers remain inclined to certain product types (Turner, 2012). The marketers are able to carry out an in depth analysis of the various types of consumer behaviors.
The marketers are also able to give the producer of a particular product the types of features that customers look for in a product. The producer can therefore change the manner in which he produces his products and instead introduce new features which seem to be more appealing to the customers. This makes the sales revenue of the business enterprise to go up (Reference for Business, 2012).
However, this would not be possible if a business enterprise does not take time to study the behavior of its customers. The marketers of any type of business can therefore be said to have a very significant impact in terms of influencing the consumption pattern of consumers (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2011). In the case of the businesses that do not take time to study the consumption behavior of their customers, their sales revenue either remain constant or decrease because of the increased competitiveness in the business environment.
The consumption pattern of consumers keeps changing once in a while based on the lifestyle that people adopt. For example, the consumption pattern today is not the same as the consumption pattern that existed in the early 1990s. As technology advances and people’s lifestyles change, the consumption behavior also changes.
As a result, marketers should ensure that they keep abreast with the consumption patterns of the consumers so that their marketing strategies can remain relevant to the consumers. This way, they would be able to implement marketing strategies that would influence the consumption patterns of consumers thereby ensuring that the organizations continue receiving a significant number of consumers.
This would have the net effect of increasing an organizations profit margin (Delbert, Roger, & Kenneth, 2002). By understanding the consumption pattern of consumers, the marketers would be able to implement future marketing strategies that would enable them to remain relevant in the eyes of the consumers. The marketers should therefore be able to come up with effective promotional offers and marketing tactics which would ensure that their organization continues to experience significant growth.
In the world today, organizations are introducing new products to enable them cope with the competitive pressure in the business environment. As a result, marketers are being faced with the problem of deciding whether they should introduce new products in the market or whether they should keep up with their current products.
When organizations realize that there is an increase in the competitive pressure because of the introduction of new products in the market, they start carrying out market surveys aimed at determining whether the introduction of a new product would be effective in raising their profit margins (Sinha, 2012).
Marketers therefore carry out a study of the consumer’s buying behavior in order know whether the introduction of a new product would be welcome by the consumers. Therefore, when marketers carry out a study of consumers’ behaviors, they are able to determine whether the introduction of a new product would be effective in meeting the needs of the consumers.
Therefore, if consumers are observed to make purchases of a particular product regularly, marketers get to understand the consumption habits of the consumers. Once consumers demonstrate that they have an interest in a particular product, it is time for the marketers to introduce a new product in the market (Agadoni, 2012).
A company may lose its reputation as a result of engaging in the production of goods that are unfriendly to the customers. In order for such an organization to earn a good reputation, it should hire marketers whose goal would be to ensure that they conduct a study of the products that seem to be more appealing to the consumers.
The producing firm can therefore manage to come up with a strategy that would enable it to produce products which would meet the needs of consumers adequately (Agadoni, 2012). The company can therefore be able to provide quality goods to its customers thereby enabling it to be in line with its mission statement.
In any country, there exist people who come from different cultures. There are people who consume certain products whereas it is a taboo for other communities to consume the same products. It is therefore the responsibility of a business enterprise to ensure that the goods being marketed to a particular society are acceptable.
Therefore, before marketing any products in any society, it is important for marketers to ensure that they fully understand the product preferences of the members of that particular community (Blythe, 2008). After a critical study of the consumers, the marketers would be able to understand the type of products to offer to the society in order to ensure that they increase their customer base significantly.
Therefore, it is true that marketers are capable of providing a business enterprise with an understanding of the types of products that should be offered to certain communities (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2011). This way, the level of demand would be high in such communities thereby increasing the overall profitability of the business enterprise.
Products that can meet the needs of consumers effectively are very important. In this perspective, it is true that most consumers demand for goods and services in order for them to survive. Other reasons why consumers demand for goods and services include prestige, security, or love.
For example, the promotion of women’s perfumes implies that women are likely to receive love if they use the perfumes. This is the same case with the advertisement of men’s cologne. In addition, prestige products are treated as very important by marketers. Marketers convince consumers that the products are important by giving the products bold advertisements (Blythe, 2008). Most prestige products are charged high prices.
Therefore, when luxury products are sold at expensive prices, the consumers give them more significance by assuming that they are of high quality. Marketers therefore need to ensure that they are proficient in marketing tactics and in analyzing consumer behavior in order to know which products they should offer at expensive prices and which products they should sell at cheaper prices
It is important for marketers to understand consumer’s psychology in order to know why they buy certain products. There are instances when marketers need to know the reasons why consumers purchase certain products. This is in order for them to know whether they can be able to influence the buying pattern of consumers (De-Mooij, 2010).
When marketers engage in the study of consumer behavior, they get to understand that there are those people who buy products out of the influence of other people while there are people who buy products in order to satisfy themselves.
For example, a shoe company that wishes to successfully market its products to consumers who wish to satisfy their own needs would mostly advertise about the comfort that the shoes would offer the customer. However, in the case where a company wishes to market its products to those people whose buying decisions are influenced by the decisions of others, the company can tell the consumers about how good they would look by wearing the shoes (De-Mooij, 2010).
The shoes should therefore be displayed differently in stores so that the different types of consumers can be able to easily identify the shoes that meet their needs adequately. In addition, since the green movement is gaining momentum, the marketing strategies that organizations adopt will have to reflect more on environmentally friendly lifestyles in order to influence the purchasing decisions of consumers.
Reference List
Agadoni, L., 2012, Why Do Marketers Need to Know Consumer Needs? Web.
Blythe, J., 2008, Consumer Behaviour, Cengage Learning, New York.
Delbert, H, Roger, B & Kenneth, C., 2002, Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy, McGraw-Hill, New York.
De-Mooij, M., 2010, Consumer Behavior and Culture: Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising, SAGE, New York.
Lamb, C. W., Hair, J. F., & McDaniel, C. (2011). Essentials of Marketing. New York: Cengage Learning.
Perner, L., 2010, Consumer Behavior: The Psychology of Marketing. Web.
Reference for Business, 2012, Consumer Behavior. Web.
Sinha, J., 2012, Understanding Consumer Behaviour in Markets. Web.
Turner, J., 2012, Why the Second Purchase is the Most Important Purchase You Get from a Customer. Web.