Question:
Identify a purchase decision (mobile phones) and show the relevant consumer behaviour influences on that purchase decision of mobile phones.
Solomon (2014) states that the purchase decision or buyer decision process is a decision-making process by consumers that comprises of market transactions before, during and after the purchase of good or service. The consumer buying behaviour is the buying behaviour of the ultimate consumer. For making a purchase decision, an organization needs to understand the buyer or consumers reaction to the organizational marketing strategy (Mohanty and Parida 2014). The marketing concept states that an organization must create a marketing mix for satisfying its customers. The consumer buying behaviour is determined by the importance and intensity of interest in specific products. It also involves the buyers’ level of involvement for seeking information about specific products or brands (Khuong and Tram 2015).
This report shall help in identifying purchase decision and show the relevant consumer behaviour influences on that purchase decision. The product chosen to prepare this report is mobile phone. The paper shall also help in analysing the relevant consumer behaviour influences on the purchase decision for buying mobile. The five stages of the purchase decision making model are analysed. This report provides a description of the purchase decision that is made to purchase mobile phone. The demographics and psychographics of the consumer are also assessed. The relevant consumer behaviour influences on the purchase decision are explained and analysed. Recommendations are provided that would influence buying decisions for mobile phones.
Decision making is a cognitive process that selects course of action from various alternatives. Purchase decision is a psychological construct that cannot be seen but can be inferred. Consumer behaviour is affected by various factors ranging from age, needs, personal motivations, social status considerations or professional status (Lysonski and Durvasula 2013).
This section elaborates the five stages of the consumer buying decision process that induces a shopper to purchase a new product. These five steps or stages can act as a guide for the marketers to understand consumers. The five stages are elaborated as follows:
This is the first and most important stage in the buying decision-making process. The need is classified as functional, social and requirement of change. For instance, a situation can be taken into consideration where a buyer is in her twenties and has decided to purchase a new mobile phone. The buyer feels her mobile phone is outdated to match the needs of a working individual. Not only the need is to meet the requirements of an updated model, but also the social status as the working individual has peers with the latest mobile phones. Value is added by iOs, Windows or Android that allows communication through internet. Therefore, the consumer need is identified for a new model of mobile phone (Cant, Brink and Brijball 2012).
Since the consumer need is identified, the consumer shall seek information about possible solutions. The buyer shall seek information internally as well as externally. As a buyer, the individual would assess the previous experience with a particular brand of mobile phone. The individual shall also talk to her friends about the types of phones, latest models and the best models. Information shall be gathered for different mobile phone brands such as Samsung, iPhone, Sony, HTC and various others. The internet shall also be explored for searching information and making comparison between different models. The individual would pay more attention to personal experiences from friends, family and acquaintances (Case 2012).
After collecting the information, different alternatives are evaluated. The dimensions such as physical attributes, pricing, charging and operating facilities, size and weight and recommendations from people shall be taken into consideration. The mobile phone brands shall be compared based on its camera, screen size, colour and packaging, brand value and various other features (Vivek, Beatty and Morgan 2012). As a buyer, the individual can also speak to the sales executive in the mobile phone store. Online ratings and other information shall also be considered for evaluative comparison. Higher the involvement of individual better shall be the number of alternatives (Gao et al. 2012).
After alternative evaluation, the buying alternatives including product, store, purchase methods and other shall be considered. For instance, the individual decides to buy Samsung mobile phone as it is not only competent in the features, but also the pricing. The individual makes a choice based on the latest features and affordable pricing that she was looking for. The payment method is chosen as credit card from an e-commerce website. The e-commerce portal is chosen as it offers low price than the local Samsung outlet (Cant, Brink and Brijball 2011).
After the product is purchased, the individual or buyer shall evaluate the adequacy of the original needs. The individual may encounter issues after she starts using the product that would contradict the positive reviews heard before (Rose et al. 2012). If the buyer holds a positive feedback and is happy with the performance of mobile phone, she would recommend and share her experiences with others. However, if the buyer would not like the Samsung user experience, she would persuade her friends and acquaintances for not buying the product or brand (Ting, Chen and Lee 2013).
The customer buying process (also called a buying decision process) describes the journey your customer goes through before they buy your product. Understanding your customer’s buying process is not only very important for your salespeople, it will also enable in aligning the sales strategy accordingly. There are three categories for purchase decision making: extensive, limited and routine. The extensive decision making is a process in which there is very high involvement and high investment requirement. For example- house, car, land, etc. The limited decision making involves purchase with nominal investment and limited purchases. For example- television, mobiles, etc. The routine decision making process involves regular purchase making decisions. For example- soap, shampoo, etc (Han and Ryu 2012).
The mobile phone purchase is categorized under limited decision making process. The involvement is comparatively low in comparison with extensive buying decision making process. According to the conceptual framework, a list of factors affects the purchase decision making process. Several physical attributes such as camera and video resolution, touch screen options, multimedia, attractive colour and packaging, design of the mobile, appearance, brand value or equity and memory capacity affects the purchase decision of the buyer (Wollenberg 2014). Several pricing features such as reduced prices, special offers, dual SIM option, international brand, reliability and special offers also play a critical role in the purchase decision process. The charging and operating facilities such as time taken to charge the mobile, operating complexity, battery life and keypad language affects the purchase decision. The size and weight of the phone also affects the decision making process (Chiu et al. 2012). The consumer prefers a large screen size and lightest possible weight for purchasing the mobile. The decision is affected by recommendations made by friends, colleagues or peers, salesperson and family members. Last but not the least; the decision is also affected by the advertising standards for a particular brand of mobile phone (Karimi, Papamichail and Holland 2015).
Samsung is a high quality product in the mobile phone market and keeps abreast of technological changes. Samsung is taking away market share of other brands such as Nokia, LG and various others. The other brands are not adapting to incorporating new technologies as quick as Samsung. However, iPhone gives a tough competition and is competent to the features of Samsung. Additionally, the brand Apple is priced too high that is not preferred by the buyer in the given scenario. The consumer is attracted towards the latest features and technology and wishes to shift from one mobile phone to another as Samsung has better technological features. The quality and durability of the brand also affects the purchase making decision (Lee et al. 2015).
People don’t typically go from blissful ignorance to paying customer in one great leap. They go through a series of thought processes along the way. The more important or risky the decision, the more processes seems to apply. The market for the mobile phone users can be segmented based on demographics, psychographics, geography or behaviour. In the given case scenario, the mobile phone market can be segmented into demographics and psychographics.
In demographic segmentation, the market is divided into several groups such as age, family size, education, race, religion, life cycle, gender and social class. In the given example, the age of the consumer belongs to the age group 20-25 years (Sandy, Gosling and Durant 2013). The needs and wants of the consumer change with her age. As she is a youngster, and earning individual, she wants a lot of additional features such as email, file editing, file scanning support and file sharing support. The basic functionalities of the product shall be fulfilled. The life cycle stage off the youth induces the need of having the latest mobile phone with smart features. As the given example is for a girl, the natural preferences differ. Men are mostly inclined towards technology that supports gaming and technical apps. However, the given example features a girl who would naturally be interested in applications or features that would support fashion, shopping and other common preferences (Sandy, Gosling and Durant 2013).
Women are gaining acceptance even in under developed economies and this has seen an increasing focus on women along with men as customers. In the given example, the buyer is a working professional. This indicates that the girl is literate. She has knowledge of the latest trends in the mobile phone market. The disposable income of the buyer allows her to spend for the latest mobile phone. The price of Samsung is comparatively low to Apple’s iPhone. This affects the buyer decision making process.
The psychographic factors involve perception, beliefs, attitudes and motivation towards a particular product. In the given example, the girl wishes to maintain her social status. The colleagues at her office share similar interests, values and behaviours. The main purpose of psychographic segmentation is to obtain a better understanding by measuring different psychological dimensions. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the girl needs to fulfil her social needs (Oliver 2011). The needs for mobile phone is recurring as the features regularly change. Different perception also affects the consumer buying behaviour process. Samsung promotes its brand through advertisements on television, magazines and internet. The information about the product is easily available on the internet. Learning refers to the process in which the consumers change the behaviour after gaining experience about a product. The emotional positions and attitudes of the buyer have changed after evaluating different alternatives for mobile phones (Mittal 2016).
The marketing professionals can modify the situational factors or temporary conditions to affect the buyer behaviour. The situational factors involve physical factors, time factors, buyers’ attitudes, mood and other reasons that influence the purchase decision. A few factors can be improved as stated below:
The marketing professionals can concentrate on physical factors such as store design and layout. Store location is a critical factor. The mobile phone brands must increase their store locations so that it is convenient for customers to purchase from the local stores. The atmospherics such as lighting and temperature also help in enhancing the experience. More number of stores can be located at crowded areas where customers have more than one option to make a purchase or view products. Online presence is another factor in which offers can be promoted to purchase from the company website. Maximum purchases are made through e-commerce websites as it offers convenience of delivery and payment.
The social situation affects the buyer decision. Certain social situations can influence a consumer from buying the product. The marketing professionals need to concentrate on subcultures such as jobs and common interests. Focus on the sub-cultures would enable consumer interest and lucrative market can be created. The social class or educational status can help in exhibiting similar purchase behaviour. The marketing professionals must promote products for all social classes. The products must be promoted and campaigns must be designed differently for higher class, lower class and middle class.
The shopping patterns of the people must be recognized. The goal is to get the products on the shelves when and where consumers want them. The marketing professionals must ensure that there is no shortage of product quantities. Companies worldwide are aware of people’s lack of time and are finding ways to accommodate them. There must be no need to wait for placing an order. The order placement or enquiries for the companies must be available with a simple click.
The marketing professionals must educate the consumers or potential buyers with the features or reasons for which a particular brand or product must be purchased. The benefits of using a mobile phone must be educated to the consumers so that the public is aware of the uses. The significant reasons such as utility, gifting and convenience must be educated to the consumers so that the people are induced to purchase the product.
Conclusion
The marketing concept states that an organization must create a marketing mix for satisfying its customers. It also involves the buyers’ level of involvement for seeking information about specific products or brands. The product chosen to prepare this report is the mobile phone. Decision making is a cognitive process that selects the course of action from various alternatives. Purchase decision is a psychological construct that cannot be seen but can be inferred. The need is classified as functional, social and requirement of change. Not only the need is to meet the requirements of an updated model, but also the social status as the working individual has peers with the latest mobile phones. The internet shall also be explored for searching information and making the comparison between different models. The dimensions such as physical attributes, pricing, charging and operating facilities, size and weight and recommendations from people shall be taken into consideration.
The individual makes a choice based on the latest features and affordable pricing that she was looking for. The individual may encounter issues after she starts using the product that would contradict the positive reviews heard before. The mobile phone purchase is categorized under limited decision making process. The involvement is comparatively low in comparison with extensive buying decision making process. The consumer prefers a large screen size and lightest possible weight for purchasing the mobile. Samsung is a high quality product in the mobile phone market and keeps abreast of technological changes. The market for the mobile phone users can be segmented based on demographics, psychographics, geography or behaviour. The disposable income of the buyer allows her to spend for the latest mobile phone. Different perception also affects the consumer buying behaviour process. Samsung promotes its brand through advertisements on television, magazines and internet.
References
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Case, D., 2012. Looking for Information. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Pub.
Chiu, C., Hsu, M., Lai, H. and Chang, C., 2012. Re-examining the influence of trust on online repeat purchase intention: The moderating role of habit and its antecedents. Decision Support Systems, 53(4), pp.835-845.
Gao, J., Zhang, C., Wang, K. and Ba, S., 2012. Understanding online purchase decision making: The effects of unconscious thought, information quality, and information quantity. Decision Support Systems, 53(4), pp.772-781.
Han, H. and Ryu, K., 2012. The theory of repurchase decision-making (TRD): Identifying the critical factors in the post-purchase decision-making process. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), pp.786-797.
Karimi, S., Papamichail, K. and Holland, C., 2015. The effect of prior knowledge and decision-making style on the online purchase decision-making process: A typology of consumer shopping behaviour. Decision Support Systems, 77, pp.137-147.
Khuong, M. and Tram, V., 2015. The Effects of Emotional Marketing on Consumer Product Perception, Brand Awareness and Purchase Decision — A Study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. JOEBM, 3(5), pp.524-530.
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Lysonski, S. and Durvasula, S., 2013. Consumer decision making styles in retailing: evolution of mindsets and psychological impacts. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 30(1), pp.75-87.
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