1. Required to identify at least three situational influences that are relevant to your firm or the firm you intend to work for (choose one product/service if more than one products/services are offered by your firm) and discuss, specifically to your firm, how the three situational influences impact on the consumer purchase decision process?
2. Draw on the theory of situational influences to discuss how marketers (in your firm) can utilise the concept of situational influences on consumer behaviour to improve/enhance your firm’s marketing strategies (4 Ps or 7 Ps, targeting, market segmentation, etc.)?
Consumer behavior regarding decisions on buying is a systematic process that helps the consumer in making the right decision for purchasing a product. The marketers in order to understand the buying decision of the customers initially need to understand the overall buying process rather than just concentrating on the purchase decision (Ammi, 2007). The consumer buying process is a 6 stage process that starts from problem recognition, search of information, evaluating the alternatives, making decisions on purchase, purchasing and post purchase evaluation (Baumeister, 2002). For this assignment, Woolworths is chosen for sheer understanding of the purchasing behavior of the customers.
Woolworths is one of the largest Australian supermarket and grocery store that has nearly occupied maximum of the Australian market with its products. It’s headquarter is in New South Wales and have a huge number of employees working over there. The product that is taken for the successful accomplishment of the assignment will be Lurpak Butter with Crushed Garlic which is a dairy product. People have now become more conscious about health and are inclined towards having pure and tasty food at the same time (Djordjevic & Djordjevic, 2012). For this, the target customers will be the health conscious people as well as vegetarian customers who are wishing to have pure and delicious products. This assignment will be focusing on the impact of physical, social, temporal and antecedent factors on the purchasing behavior of the consumers. In addition to this, the marketing strategies will also be discussed vividly that help in improving the marketing strategies for the Lurpak Butter with crushed garlic dairy product (Scott, 2012).
a) Impact of physical factor on consumer purchasing decision process
The physical factors are those factors that includes the location of the stores where the product will be available, the atmosphere, whether, aromas, sounds etc. in the physical environment that helps in influencing the decisions of the customers purchasing behavior (Alexander, 2012). The other physical factors also take into account the nutritional values and health factors due to consumption of the product.
The Lurpak crushed garlic butter is in a good demand among the customers of New South Wales since the customers are highly inclined towards the tasty but healthy dairy products. The dairy product Lurpak Butter with Crushed Butter has multipurpose usages such as spreading, searing or slathering. Moreover, it can also be stirred through pasta and can even be melted over vegetables meat as well as fish. The other physical factors for which this dairy product can be used is because of its unique taste and the Danish flavor that contains high nutritional values (Clarke, 2001). So, Woolworths keeping in mind the nutritional values such as well proportionate energy, fat, carbohydrates, sugar, protein and salt have targeted the customers who are health conscious as well as seeking out for tasty foods. The marketers of Woolworths has planned to locate the store in New South Wales due to its posh location and made the product highly available in the stores for the customers.
Since, the atmosphere of this place is humid to a slight extent during the months of summer and is also mild as well as free from extreme weather conditions of heat and cold. For this environment, dairy products are in huge demand due to extensive supply of milk and involvement of high technologies in development of dairy products. Moreover, due to reduction of supply chain costs, the Lurpak Butter with Crushed Garlic is highly available (Hassan & Craft, 2012). The strong essence of garlic is very attractive to the customers and due to its essence, customers prefer buying this product. Moreover, there is no addition of any non vegetarian ingredients that also helps the product in becoming most suitable for the vegetarians. Moreover, the environment of the store is also attractive that gives a wonderful feeling to the consumers and give them a unique experience while shopping (Jeannet, Hennessey & Jeannet, 2004).
The societal factors that include the culture, subculture, social class, beliefs, customers and attitudes of the customers greatly affect the purchasing behavior of the customers. These factors are more outward and have wide influence on the beliefs and ways of doing things (Hung, 2010). The culture has a good impact on the buying behavior of the consumers so the marketers of Woolworths need to understand initially the culture of the people that will help them in improving the marketing strategies of the organization.
Woolworths continuously focuses on offering their customers a high quality and delicious food at the maximum level. In South Wales, maximum of the people are rich and are concerned about having the best quality products irrespective of any price. The Lurpak crushed garlic butter will be of a good demand because of its unique taste and usage of good quality butter. Due to huge demand and supply of the dairy products, the consumers of New South Wales are highly inclined towards the dairy products (Glickman, 2009). With the changing world and trends, people are more inclined towards the healthy but tasty dairy products that will give both tastes as well as maintain the dietary ingredients of the product. In addition to this, New South Wales being one of the metropolitan cities and with the increasing population, the social culture of the region has more inclination towards the milk products due to the supply of the milk all year round. The overall reputation of Woolworths and its dairy products also help in influencing the buying behavior of the consumers (Haghshenas, Abedi & Ghorbani, 2013). There are many people that are totally vegetarians and are in seek of the dairy products totally made of vegetarian ingredients. For them, this product is highly in demand due to its awesome taste, flavor as well as easy availability.
Temporal behaviors are those behaviors that influence the behavior of the consumers on the perspective of time. It is often said that the limited purchase time limits the search. So, this dairy product need to be easily available to the customers and its presence in the stores should be present in order to reach the customers (Chris Adalikwu, 2012). The more the availability of the product will be within the store, the customers will be readily accessing it. In addition to this, with the increase in time limitation, the rise in demand of internet shopping has also raised to a considerable extent.
The temporal factors that need to be considered are whether this product Lurpak crushed garlic butter is seasonal or not, the urgency of the product, the time availability for shopping and the duration of the product. These factors have a strong impact on the purchase behavior of the consumers (M A. O. Dos Santos, 2012). Since, Woolworths is already occupying a huge position in the market of Australia, the products sold by it already have an added advantage on the customers. The availability of the product in the online stores as well as offline stores saves the time of the consumers that make it attractive as well as consumable to the customers.
The antecedent factors also have impact on the purchasing behavior of the consumers and influence their buying behavior to a large extent. The antecedent states are the moods and the momentary conditions that the marketers of Woolworths have to remember since these factors determine the purchasing decision process of the consumers (Maricic, Veljkovic & Djordjevic, 2012).
The moods of the consumers are both persuasive and swaying. The marketers need to understand the change in mood of the customers initially and so the product needs to be kept in vision in the stores in order to get a quick access of the product to the consumers. Moreover, the momentary conditions also affect the purchasing behavior of the customers (Molloy, Scott & Naomi, 2013). It may happen that the customers suddenly may feel the urge of having this product in their daily diet because of its exclusive taste and flavor. It is believed by the marketers of Woolworth that an extensive activity of marketing is highly influenced towards the momentary conditions.
The marketing strategies of Woolworths are strong enough for attracting a huge customer database and occupying a prestigious and high position in the market. The marketing strategies are so made in order to increase the sales to a considerable extent and attain a sustainable competitive advantage over the competitors and rivals (Noel, 2009). The marketing strategies of Woolworths are so made that combines the marketing goals of the organization in order to achieve the consumer satisfaction and increase in consumer database.
Product
The dairy product Lurpak crushed garlic butter is exclusively a dairy product made for the vegetarians as well as health conscious people. The physical environment of the store needs to be highly attractive and lucrative for attracting the customers to a huge extent (Roman, Popiela-Pleban & Kozak, 2013). Moreover, the product needs to be kept in the front shelf of the store so that it easily catches the attention of the customers. The product needs to be triggered to the vegetarians as well as health conscious people who want both taste and health factors at the same time. The product needs to be easily available in the stores so that the customers can get it accessed easily without any problem. Moreover, the social factors also have a large impact on the buying behavior of the customers regarding the product (Pentina & Koh, 2012). This is because, the product is totally vegetarian and there are many customers in New South Wales who have opted for vegetarian products due to health issues. So keeping this in mind the marketing team of Woolworths places the product into the market.
The place is another important aspect that needs to be kept in mind since this affects the customer purchasing behavior to a huge extent. The Lurpak crushed garlic butter dairy product need to be easily available in the stores that will increase the loyalty of the customers on the product (Tabaei & Fathian, 2012). The more easily the product is available, the more the customers will start relying on it and hence the sales of the product will increase leading to the increase in customer database. In addition to this, the ingredients of the product are healthy as well as well proportionate in order to provide a good and healthy dairy product to the consumers keeping in mind their health (Solomon, 2003). In addition to this, the stores are placed in the metropolitan cities that help in easy availability of the product.
Price is an important factor of marketing strategy that helps in determining the customer purchasing behavior. The prices of the Lurpak crushed garlic butter is quiet low and is easily available to nearly all the stores. The price is nearly $2.79 in Woolworth’s store that can be easily accessed by the customers of New South Wales (Wood, 2005). Moreover, seasonal discounts are also given on order to retain the old customers as well as attract new customers for this product. It is the nature of the customers to have the best quality product at nominal prices. Moreover the customers now days have become health conscious so they are inclined towards healthy dairy products that will give both taste and health. Due to the presence of the other rivalries and a good supply as well as demand of milk and dairy products, the prices of this product has to be less in order to have a competitive strategy over other products (Molloy, Scott & Naomi, 2013). The low prices of this product also affect the temporal factors that also help in attracting the customers as it targets the mood of the customers.
The promotional activity of the organization is also essential to promote its product since it affects the consumer behavior to a huge extent. There are several promotional activities for attracting the customers such as advertising, direct selling, offering discounts and giving this product as a complimentary to the customers after they bought goods up to a certain extent (Luca & Suggs, 2010). The promotional activities of the product need to be such that it is attractive to the customers keeping in mind not to hurt the sentiments of the customers. In addition to this, it is believed that the promotional activities help in promoting as well as enhancing the relationship between the customers and the organization (Medway, Warnaby & Dharni, 2010).
The physical evidence includes the presence and availability of the products to the consumers. The availability of the product in the stores largely affects the consumer attraction as well as customer purchasing behavior. The customers need to be given free samples of trial in order to make them understand the taste, flavor and aroma of the Lurpak crushed garlic butter dairy product (Baumeister, R. (2002). This attracts the customers and compels them to become loyal towards the product after tasting that product personally. Moreover, the quality of the product is also quiet impressive and lucrative since it is a well balanced combination of both health and taste. This is essential for the company to keep in mind since it also helps in formulating effective marketing strategies for attracting the customers and increasing the sales of the organization.
The customers are another important factor that needs to be concerned regarding the formulation of the marketing strategies by Woolworths. Customers are the ultimate targets of the company for which the product is made so readily available to them. Keeping in mind, the social attributes of the people and their culture, the products are made in order to target the vegetarian customers as well as health conscious customers (Glickman, 2009). Not only the skills and knowledge of the staff is essential but the way of presenting the product into the market help in getting more customers for the product. The satisfaction of the customers is the ultimate targets of any organization and Woolworths is also not an exception. There are several people who are vegetarian as well as health conscious. So for those customers, Woolworths has this exclusive product as a strong marketing strategy.
The process includes the ease of reaching the product to the targeted customers. The stores need to be located in the visual arena of the people that helps the customers to locate the stores easily. Moreover, the environmental ambience of the store, the promotional activities etc. have a huge impact on the process of marketing and sales (Jeannet, Hennessey & Jeannet, 2004). The process needs to simple but strong enough for reaching the targeted customers so that they on their will be buying the products. Moreover, the marketing strategy of the company is made from the viewpoint of the customers and according to their convenience. This makes the marketing strategy of the company strong that leads to the higher purchase of the product.
STP is the acronym of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning of the product to the customers in order to increase the sales review as well as increase the profit margin of the company. A marketing strategy is so made that influence the buying behavior of the customers (Molloy, Scott & Naomi, 2013). STP is done to understand the customers well and segregate them accordingly to their needs and wants for providing better services to them.
Market segmentation is essential since, by segmenting the market into homogenous groups, the Lurpak Butter with Crushed garlic dairy product can be easily triggered. Segmentation is done on the basis of demographic, psychographic, lifestyle, belief and values along with added benefits to the customers (Wood, M. (2005). Depending on these factors, the marketing strategies of Woolworths are made for targeting the customers for the product. These products are made easily available to the stores, the prices are made less, and discounts are also given along with attractive packaging and health values to the customers.
This dairy product is targeted to the health conscious people and vegetarian consumers so the products contain ingredients that are healthy and maintain the health balance of the people. The segmentation has eased up the targeting since the company needs to target the segregated groups according to their needs and wants (Rahman & Areni, 2014). The prices of the products are also low so the customers will be happy to have this product since at low cost they are getting huge health benefit. This will surely affect the purchasing behavior of the customers as on buying this product, along with health, the product is also tasty that gives an added advantage to the customers.
The marketing positioning of the product is also essential part of the market strategy. This is because; the better the positioned in the market among and segmented and targeted customers, the Sales and revenue of the company will increase. For positioning the product the company needs to remember the social as well as the cultural beliefs and values of the customers. This is done in order to prevent hurting the sentiments of the people (Ylimäki, 2014). For better positioning of the product, Woolworths makes the presence of this product in nearly every store and in the health department section. The customers finding this product at low cost with good taste tends to buy this product resulting in increase in profit of the organization. A better positioning of the product helps in better results of marketing and sales and also largely affects the purchasing behavior of the customers.
Conclusion
This assignment has dealt with the impacts of physical factors, social factor, temporal factor and antecedent factors on the consumer purchasing and decision process of the dairy product named Lurpak Butter with Crushed garlic. It is seen that since the product is totally vegetarian and is made up of healthy ingredients, the products generally targets the consumers those want healthy food along with taste and at low prices. The 7Ps of marketing strategies are also discussed along with the STP that help in understanding the company’s strategies so made based on the purchasing behavior of the consumers.
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