Woolworth’s Supermarket: Products, Target Customers, And Influences On Consumer Purchase Decision Process

Introduction to Woolworth’s Supermarket

1.You are required to Identify at least two social influences that are relevant to the Consumers of your firm or the firm you intend to work for (choose one product/service if more than one is offered by your firm) and analyse, specific to your firm, how the two or more social influences (culture, social class or reference groups) impact on the consumer purchase decision process

2.Discuss how marketers (in your firm) can apply this critical understanding of Social Influences on Consumer Behaviour to improve/enhance your firm’s Marketing Strategies (4 Ps or 7 Ps, targeting, market segmentation).

This essay presents the description of Woolworth’s supermarket and its products. It also explains the target customer for their chosen product. Further, this essay discusses the consumer buying behavior and impact of social influences on the consumer purchase decision process. In the last, it illustrates different strategy that Woolworths can use to influence the purchase decision of customers towards their food products.

Woolworth’s supermarket is a grocery retail chain that is established in NSW, Australia. It is owned by Woolworths limited. This company was developed in September 1924. Woolworths has covered approximately 80% market of Australia. After 1924, the interest of the consumer is increasing and a large number of branches is started in Australia. In 1985, Woolworths has acquired American supermarket giant Safeway. In 2017, Woolworths is using green apple logo (Woolworths, 2017).  

Woolworth’s deals in different products like clothing, accessories, foods, footwear, and cosmetics. For assessing the consumer buying behavior, the food product is selected due to narrow research.

Woolworths should target the customer as per geographical, demographical and psychographic factors. As per the geographical basis, the company will target the customer who belongs to urban areas of Australia. According to demographic factor, the company will target both male and female customers because food products are used by both genders. The company will select the above 18-28 and 28-38 years of the consumer for gaining awareness regarding consumer buying process towards food products. The company will also target the different class of people to assess the impact of social factor on consumer buying behavior such as middle-class income of people. In the psychographic factor, the company will choose the customer who gives priority to buy eco-friendly products.

Consumer behavior is the study of how individual groups, customers, and organization choose, purchase, utilize and dispose of the ideas, product and services to gratify their requirement and desires. It also demonstrates the action of the consumer in the marketplace and underlying motives for those deeds (Solomon, 2014).

Target Customers for Food Products

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theories

(Sources: Kuan, et. al., 2014).

Tha basic need can be transferred by Woolworths supermarket, Australia to their end consumers. This need shows the base of the pyramid which involves different factors such as the hygienic environment in a retail shop, fresh and superior quality food. This supermarket also emphasizes on these needs at the initial phase to meet the customer’s need (Hajli, 2014).

This need shows the second level of the pyramid in which Woolworths emphasize on offering the assurance of safety and security to the customers. In this element, Woolworth’s supermarket can demonstrate the quality, flavors, appearance and texture on the packaging of food products. As a result, it would be beneficial to meet the second level need of customers and it will have a positive impact on the revenue of the company (Armstrong, et. al., 2015).

Love and Belongingness

This level includes the need for friendship, family, and intimacy. This need is related to the ability of a person to build liaison. Therefore, in this level, Woolworth’s supermarket can combine the customer choice into the business decision to make strong bonding with them (Hajli, 2014).

In this level, needs of the customer are related to the feeling of appreciation and recognition. There are two versions regarding needs higher and lower. In this way, lower version of needs focus on recognition and appreciated by others. As well as, higher version of needs is focused on different factors like freedom, self-esteem, achievement, and independence. Therefore, the company should focus on these factors to satisfy the self-esteem needs of customers as it will impact on the company productivity (Schivinski and Dabowski, 2016).

Self-actualization needs define the personal growth and achievement need of customers. However, this factor relies on the self-attitude and personal drive of an individual in strong point. Woolworth’s supermarket can entail these needs in their strategy to retain the current customers (Salazar, et. al., 2013). 

Social factor

There are different social factors such as reference group, role and status and social classes which may impact on the consumer buying behavior. Hence, Woolworths supermarket provides different sort of facilities to their customers like sales discount at weekends, in the festive season, and sales point to their customers. In addition, it can also target the healthy lifestyle customers by delivering organic and healthy food products to customers (Bartels, and Onwezen, 2014). Following are different social factors which influence the consumer purchase decision process:

Understanding Consumer Buying Behavior

Reference groups

The reference group is an element of creating the attitude and conduct behavior of an individual. The impact of reference group perception may differ as it depends on the products. For example, if the products and services are tangible like food products then the influence of reference group would be higher. It could be either informal or formal. In this way, peers, schools, and friends are an example of the informal reference group. Along with this, religious, clubs and association are formal reference group. It is analyzed that individual can also be informal reference group and celebrities could be used as formal reference group. Woolworths can use celebrity to influence the buying decision of customers towards their food products (Mueller Loose, and Remaud, 2013). It can also use celebrity to endorse their food products because it will be beneficial to persuade the targeted customers. 

Social Classes

Each society involves different kinds of social class that is required for marketing because the buying behavior of consumer in a particular social class could be homogeneous. Hence, the corporation should emphasize on a distinct social class to conduct marketing practices. Social class can have a reflective impact on the buying habits of consumers. Along with this, level of disposable income has an impact on each social class. It is analyzed that the rich have the capability to buy more food products as compared to those who have fewer earnings. Further, low-class people have not the capability to buy the higher quality. Hence, there is the difference in the customer decision making to buy the food products (Wikström, et. al., 2014). For instance, the higher class tends to initial customer who prefers healthy food and shop at exclusive retailers whereas lower class people are concerned to get the necessities foods.

Marketing strategies to influence the consumer purchase decision towards food products

Product:

Woolworths is a leading Australian retailer which facilities different types of food products. These are vegetables, meat, packaged products, and fruits. Within each category, Woolworths facilitates different kinds of alternative associated with the brand and locally produce international cuisine (Wee, et. al., 2014). Thus, it provides customer satisfaction by offering them an alternative choice. There is a wide category of product is tested and recognized by Woolworth’s experts to keep superiority. This standard has aided the corporation to gratify the customer’s needs.

Price:

Woolworths try to keep similar and slightly higher prices as compared to the market. It is analyzed that Woolworths offer different premium products in the food chain as there is the competitive price in the market. Woolworths segmented both consumers who prefer low and premium prices. In the Australia, reward program can offer by the Woolworths such as $20 vouchers for gathering 2000 points. It can also provide shopping card to customers as it would be beneficial to mechanically record their purchases (Previte, et. al., 2015). Through this, it can provide an applicable discount to customers. There is no need to keep the paper receipt regarding customer purchase.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theories

Place:

Woolworths deal in 1000 stores in Australia in which more than 950 stores are supermarkets and other is convenience stores. In this way, certain stores deal as Safeway stores in the city of Melbourne. They can sell their food products via online platform as it will be beneficial to influence the purchasing decision of customers towards their food product. They can also sell their food products through mobile app as customers can give the order of products from anywhere. Woolworth can also sell the private label food products in their stores (Hoek, et. al., 2017). It can also deliver the food product in less time by recruiting more delivery boy as it would be beneficial to influence the purchasing behavior of customers.

Promotion:

Promotion is another strategy that is effective to positively influence the social factors. It should use the innovative message to endorse their food products. Woolworths can facilitate the loyalty scheme for their customer such as food discount. It can also exercise online media and newsletter and magazines for effective and efficient promotion. As a result, it would be beneficial to influence the purchasing decision of customers. It provides easy accessibility and availability to customers which create loyalty among customers. Woolworths can facilitate extensive deals and offers for their customers. It can deliver the gift card and conduct extensive promotion through online media channel. It should use online stores and facilitates discount to influence the purchasing decision of bulk of customer (Schiffman, et. al., 2013). A wide promotional channel aids the Woolworths to arrive at target segment and generate profit in the market.

Undifferentiated marketing strategy can be used by Woolworths to overcome the social influencing factors. Under this strategy, the company produces only one product and targets all of its customers by using single marketing mix. Under this marketing, the company can cover the whole market and ignore the segment differences. It covers the whole market by using one marketing strategy. This marketing strategy focuses to influence the purchasing decision of a large number of audience.  Under the targeting strategy, the company focuses on a large number of media strategies like television, radio, and newspaper (Lee, and Yun, 2015). The key purpose of using this strategy is to disclose the product in front of a large number of customers.

Woolworth’s supermarket can segment its customer as per the different factors to influence the purchasing decision of food products. These factors are discussed below:

Social Influences on Consumer Purchase Decision Process

The company should emphasize on offering quality food to potential customers. In this way, the company should categorize the customer as per their income level. Along with this, it can offer 35%  discount to government employees at weekend. Under this factor, the company can also segment the customer as the age basis such as it can segment the 18-28 and 28-38 years of people. This age-group can be selected due to attracting both middle and business group by offering the quality and low price food product as per the need of person (Hoek, et. al., 2017). It can also segment the customer as per the individual expectation, behavior, and requirement as it will be beneficial to persuade the purchasing behavior of customers.

Woolworth’s supermarket can also segment the customer according to their behavior regarding food products such as purchasing vegetables, fruits, and meat from the supermarket. By using this strategy, the company can focus on the segmenting the loyal customers but there are needed to offer discount and affordable price of food products to government employees (Lee, and Yun, 2015). As a result, it could be significant to influence the purchasing decision of customers.

Conclusion

From the above interpretation, it can be concluded that Woolworths supermarket is a retail chain in Australia which deals with different products and services. Food products are selected to examine the consumer behavior of Woolworths. Moreover, 18-28 and 28-38 years of the consumer are selected as a target customer. It can be also summarised that Maslow’s hierarchy need of theory and Herzberg theory is used to influence the consumer buying behavior. It can be evaluated that reference group and social classes are two social influential factors which may affect the consumer purchasing decision. It can be also determined that there are different marketing strategies that may influence purchasing decision of customers.

References

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Woolworths (2017). About us. Retrieved from: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-brands/supermarkets/Woolworths