Introduction
Human society in present days has seen rapid growth in the marketing sector where consumer-added benefits or innovations have been created at various levels of marketing to enhance sales. The innovative aspect of marketing is further made necessary by the need to be in tune real-time with consumers’ or customers’ consistently dynamic demands and desires. In order to make available what the consumer needs, the marketer has to, as a responsibility, define clearly the things that are influencing customers to makes purchases of a certain product/services. Marketing researches/surveys have therefore been carried out by companies’ marketing units to access the behaviour or the tendency of consumers to trend with a product within a limited time frame.
In the year 2007, the effect of collapse in economy indicated that marketing could also be affected by the incapability of consumers to spend when they lack a more secured source of income in a defined economy. This paper seeks to identify some of the most concrete behavioural issues that influence consumption by product/service end-users.
The Dynamism of Consumer Behaviours; Possible Causes
Studies have been conducted at various levels of marketing to ascertain the identity of the consumer in our present society where symbolism appears to have very strong impacts on the choices made by consumers.1 Belk conducted a study to identify the certainty of consumers’ behaviour definition in terms of individualism and confirmed that quite a number of the day-to-day activities of the consumer are carried out as a routine/mundane work which is limited to the individual’s preferences.2 These individual preferences in a collective form constitute the relationship between a commodity or a product and its marketability, and form the basic marketing power of the marketers. Some of the qualities/issues identified to have influenced consumption based on consumers’ behaviours are highlight thus:
Incentives
Incentives are considered to be effective tools that drive consumers around in the marketing world as they influence the desire of individuals to make purchases of a certain commodity. It has been found that nearly all consumers would always prefer to have value added to the products or services they make payment for- and the value addition could come in the form of discounts or offers.3
Quality
Presently, a majority of consumers want to pay for a product or service that they are sure of the form of delivery, the packaging, and the quality. But even much more than this, the consumer would always want to be sure of the durability of a product purchased and will be more comfortable with such a product that offers reliability and can be depended upon. By suggestion, therefore, producers must seek out ways to consistently meet up with the production and delivery of long lasting products in order to win consumers’ interests.
Budgeting
There are strong indications that quite a number of consumers are increasingly becoming more careful with their expenses; as such, they may turn out to ignore making unnecessary purchases. To understand the consumers’ behaviour sometimes, it is pertinent to know where they are coming from and based on their background, their purchasing power for a certain commodity or product could be made more clearer as their background is likely to suggest their preferences and even how much they may be willing to stake on a particular product.
Age Group of Consumer
In the marketing world, the producer must be informed of the targeted market in terms of the age bracket to which a certain product is meant to satisfy. It has been found that even for a certain individual, his or her preferences continue to vary with aging4, as such there is the need for the producer to be aware of the behavioural shift and interest drift of a consumer at all points in time. As an illustration, the production of trendy electronic gargets targeted at the aged may not be of high purchase since their priorities may have drifted from the use of electronics to health or fame rather than acquiring toys. An electronic producing company would therefore have to channel its resources to targeted youthful consumers whose demand for the products would usually be higher than the aged.
Value for Products
At every level in production, the producer has to seek out to find what is of interest to the consumer so that a product is not produced in the hope that it will have a good market.5 The producer could seek out to educate the product end-users, where it is necessary, to further make clear the values of the products for the benefit of the consumer.
Conclusion
This paper discusses the possible influences to purchasing trends of consumers based on their behaviours in a society that seem to become competitive and demanding for better marketing facilities to enhance sales. The innovative aspect of marketing has been considered to be made necessary by the need to be in tune real-time with consumers’ or customers’ consistently dynamic demands and desires. This is made necessary to make available what the consumer needs in such a way that sales are fostered.
Bibliography
Belk, R, ‘I Shop, Therefore I Am’, American Anthropologist, vol. 101, no.1, 1999, pp. 182-85.
Bourdieu, P, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1984.
Chaney, D, Lifestyles, Routledge, London, 1996.
Giddens, A, Modernity and Self-Identity, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991.
Slater, D, Consumer Culture and Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997.
Footnotes
- A Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991, p. 56
- R Belk, ‘I Shop, Therefore I Am’, American Anthropologist, vol. 101, no.1, 1999, pp. 182-85.
- D Chaney, Lifestyles, Routledge, London, 1996, p. 30
- D Slater, Consumer Culture and Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997, p. 19
- P Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1984, p.63