The article “Consumer perception of price, quality, and value” by V. Zeithaml describes relations between such factors as price, quality and value and their impact on customers’ decision to purchase a product. The a mean-ends model has no sense as it misinterpret the main marketing concepts related to price, quality and added value and overestimate the impact of perceive quality and attributes on a decision to purchase. Such features as status symbols, prestige, utility, economy, price, service, and warranties may appeal to different segments of the market but they cannot be seen as dominant motives for purchase. Motivation, though important to consumption and helpful in explaining consumer reactions, need not be the only governing force. It refers to only one means by which behavior is initiated or aroused. Some behavioral reactions are not motivated in the ordinary sense of seeking need gratifications. I disagree with Zeithaml that customers rely on product attributes and payoff of the product neglecting price. Conflict might arise from the consideration of such factors a price, innovation, service, warranty, sales effort, advertising, and product image. Consumption experience is itself a learning process. These forces consist of positive valences pressing for purchase and negative valences pressing against it.
Zeithaml overemphasizes the role of perceived quality and price in purchasing process. Societies engender conformity by imposing constraints on the individual. However, different societies enforce conformity and shape social character in definably different ways. Some societies are tradition directed. Individuals having well-defined functional relationships exist with other group members, thus eliciting conformity. Other societies are inner-directed — the individual has a psychic gyroscope incorporated early in life. Other-directedness partially explains behavioral conformity. The need for approval from others is a motivating force. In many situations, intrinsic attributes do not have a great impact on consumers. The modern other-directed types make the psychological need to be wanted and liked by others the chief source of direction and area of sensitivity. The tendency toward other-direction and conformity by societies as they progress and develop into industrial, urban complexes has profound implications for marketing. Marketing programs, and promotional activities in particular, become more concerned with affecting group influentials and leaders, and with understanding groups and their values, to shape the direction of consumers. This does not mean that advertising, merchandising, sales promotion, and selling will be able to mold consumers and automatically induce favorable reactions. By contrast, some other cultures that are more restrictive in their anticipations do not expect, hope for, or plan for any great change in their environment. I suppose that the orientation and life-style outlook of each of the classes differs from members of other strata. Societies engender conformity and shape social character in different ways. Some are tradition directed and others are inner directed, but ours is largely other directed. People pay close attention to the signals received from others — friends and mass media. Our society also has the permanent traits of innovation, change, mobility, and movement. As a result, the tendency to conformity is tempered by dynamism and change. Marketing analysts should be well aware of the significance of sociological factors; they have been described as socio-graphics.
In sum, Zeithaml’s model overemphasizes the impact on value and quality on consumers’ decision to purchase a product. Many marketers deal with rats and learning in a maze. Groups witnessing a decision being made can influence what happens. Also, decision roles outside the home need not be the same as the roles within. The reasons for making purchases vary among buyers. Past buying decisions and choices give an individual good information on possible outcomes.
Bibliography
Zeithaml, V. Consumer perception of price, quality ,and value: A means-end Model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing; 1988; 52 (3), 2-22.