Consumer Behaviour And Marketing Psychology In Shell Petrol Station

Overview of the Shell Petrol Services

Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Psychology in Shell Petrol Station

In market set up is made up buyers and sellers. Over the last months there has been a growing interest in the field of services or product marketing and consumer purchasing behaviours of a particular brand of product. Much of the literature and reports to date have been concerned either with the extent to which services delivery marketing requires a separate approach from the marketing of physical goods or with identifying specific marketing strategies to deal with the problems posed by the unique characteristics of services. The main aim of sellers is to make their products marketable and consumers able to purchase. If the producer selling products to the consumer buyers know their buying behaviours, they are in a better position to produce goods or services that meet their specifications. Buyers purchasing behaviours therefore, focus on individual, groups or organisation decision makings towards certain brand of products in the market mix. The sole aim of marketers or producer is to satisfy their customer wants or needs. Satisfying consumer wants or needs, a producer needs to integrate marketing mix in its products, that is the actual product, price, place and promotion. All these are put together to facilitate and influence the purchasing behaviour and power of both potential and active consumer of a product.  .

Apparently, a slight change in consumer purchasing behaviour would result in reduction in the market share of the product and the company would be operating at small marginal revenues (Kuester, 2014. p. 67). Therefore, a change in consumer behaviour could be as a result of culture, attitudes, personal perception of the product or learning of new existing quality products in the market. Then the consumer would choose to buy another product brand as a substitute of the product in question.  The research topic would discuss the consumer purchasing behaviour and consumer decision on a product.

In the last few months, the management has been recording few customers at their petrol stations. The reduction in the consumer purchasing behaviour was recorded in all the outlets within the region despite the fact that it has several outlet stations. This has led to a decrease in total revenues collected average per month as compared to the previous months before.  However, other petrol stations adjacent to the Shell like Total and Oilibya within the vicinity has been affected by the change in the fuel consumption behaviour (Rossister & Bellman, 2005). More vehicles are queuing even though the line is big but they cannot opt for fuel consumption in Shell Petrol Station.

This reduction in the fuel consumption at Shell has led to many workers lay off from their duties, the number of daily operations minimised an high escalating costs in transporting fuel from the deport while few customers line up for fuel at the station. Many workers and staffs have been laid off their duties as a way of reducing costs to the management. Perhaps if the process continues for long period of time as routine behaviour, many people would lose their jobs and more stores would be closed down in the process (Hoaward && Sheth, 1969). And if the process goes for a while as occasional behavior, the company would reduce its operational levels. Therefore, the initiate taken is to understand the sudden change in consumer purchasing behavior, its cause and look for possible marketing solution as remedy to the effect and restore the buying and selling process of fuel as it was before the situation occurred.

Before a consumer purchase a product, the psychological effects influence the decision to make a purchase of that particular product. However, not all the decisions would lead to a purchase (Foxall, 2005). Actual purchase of a product or good or service involves one stage of the process. There are six decision making process for a consumer to purchase a product. They include;

• Problem Identification or awareness; it is the initial stage of purchase. During this stage, a consumer would realize the gap or the need to be fulfilled or missing in his life. Problem recognition can be propagated by available product information in the market. This can be through direct eye observation or through the media of the existence of the product. For instance, seeing a petrol station would influence a car driver to seek for fuel to his car (Maclinnis et al 2014). The identification of a petrol station stimulates the need for fuel consumption.
• Information search. The need for the information concerning the need or want starts. The source of information can either be internal search (individual memory) or external search from other materials like books, friends, media, marketers, internet or public sources. The buyer would gather all the information he needs to know regarding the product or service needed. The consumer of fuel would seek where the outlets providing fuel in the area, their prices, the types of fuel they store, operation hours etc  (Belch et al 2009). A successful search should provide the consumer with a variety of options choices or alternatives to choose from if one fails the other alternative works.   
• Research evaluation; the information gathered is evaluated according to the needs or wants. The scale of preference is then narrowed down to give the best alternative to all that meets the financial constraints of the buyer. After choosing best criteria of purchase to evaluate the varied choices given, the alternatives are ranked according to the need from the highest to the lowest ranks. If the consumer is not satisfied with the choices given at hand, the search begins again to another phase until the best alternative is chosen. In fuel consumption, a car can use diesel or petrol (Lynn et al 2011). Therefore, the car owner would rank the fuel stations according to the product or service they offer. If he needs petrol but the diesel is only available, the search continues to another station
• Purchase decisions and purchase; the purchasing decision would be made by the consumer. The ultimate decision of purchase can be influenced by price, the product in question availability, package, method of purchase the size, color, smell, texture etc. for instance, the fuel consumption (Sandhussen & Richard 2000). The car owner would then make the decision to buy petrol from Shell Company by looking at fuel availability, the price at the station, the store of fuel and how it is kept etc.  All these factors would influence the decision.
• Post-purchase evaluation; the outcome of making the purchase is therefore, evaluated whether satisfied or dissatisfied with the purchase. Evaluation whether the right decision was made while making the purchase is then considered (Rossiter & Bellman, 2015). However, this can be reduced by warranties, after sale services, commissions, free gifts etc. After buying petrol fuel from the Shell Company, the owner of the car would evaluate whether the petrol purchased there is better, more or has some additional effects to the vehicle like knocks.

A consumer, making a purchase of a product makes decisions which mostly affected by four factors; they include;

• Individual or Personal a number of personal factors influence the consumer behavior. They include; firstly, age and lifestyles- age of a consumer would influence life styles. As age changes of a consumer as lifestyles changes and motives of purchase.  Younger people are more influenced with trends and fashions and this also influences their lifestyles. Older people tend to make reasonable decisions when it comes to shopping than younger people. Secondly, occupation is the another factor- the type of job one does for income would greatly influence the purchasing patterns of goods and services (Foxall, 2005). A person earning more income would purchase more expensive goods than one with low income as the bargaining power is available to buy what he wants. Therefore, a company produces goods depending on the ability to purchase. Thirdly, personality- every person is different and has distinct personalities. This affects the purchasing decisions. Hence, the purchase of goods differs from one person to another depending on the personality of individual. Fourthly, attitudes of the product- a consumer having a knowledge and positive or negative attitudes or feelings of a product  would influence the purchasing decisions. Learning through experience and interactions cause a change in attitudes (Foxall, 2005). Therefore, a consumer’s attitudes towards certain brand of a product from a certain firm would influence the marketing strategy of its failures or success in the market.
• Psychological Factors; firstly,  motives of the consumer towards the product. Motives activate interest of the product. It directs a consumer towards certain goals of either for psychological needs or satisfaction, if a company identifies the motives of the consumers then they would develop market mix of the products. Secondly, perception- it involves the interpretation of information to give its meaning. A consumer can develop strong perception through smell, sight, hearing, taste, and touch (Lynn et al, 2015). A producer therefore, produces goods that would influence the consumer’s perception positively and creates long lasting retention of the information corded of the product in their minds. Thirdly, ability and knowledge of the product and its existence, information received by the consumer through learning and experience would greatly affect the purchasing decisions. To change the consumers; behavior about the product, the producer needs to change the information about the product and gives new brand name or addition of new things to the brand. Fourthly, the attitudes and the beliefs of the consumer towards the product (Rossiter & Bellman, 2005). A favourable feeling about the product by the consumer brings positive attitudes of the product and vice versa. What a consumer beliefs in the product would affect the attitude towards the product,. A positive belief promotes the product while a negative belief would make the product less important to them.
• Social Factors: They include; family- the family and family members have influence in the purchasing power of the consumer towards the product. Some buying decisions are made by the family unit, a consumer behavior also starts from the family circle, family roles and preferences and family sizes would influence the purchasing behavior of the family unit. Secondly, the reference groups within the society. An individual is identified by the society and the purchasing decisions are defined by the society set up. Any group can influence decisions either positively or negatively so as to feel welcomed in as group members. Thirdly, social class of the consumer within the society structure (Howard & Sheth, 1969). A working class has different purchasing behavior as compared to a jobless person or with low class in the society.  Social class also determines the quality, quantity, types and the brands of products to be purchased. Fourthly, culture and sub-culture of the society. A culture usually determines the norms and beliefs of the society. Therefore, cultures can influence purchase of certain products as acceptable by the norms and beliefs of the society. Culture determines what people wear, eat, reside, and travel.

The most recent methods used in communicating the product to the public to create consumer awareness and build strong consumer purchasing behaviors include;

• Branding; giving names to a product that is easy to read and write to many consumers would boost purchasing powers. A brand name should be unique from other competitors’ names. It should be easy to remember by the consumer and it should bear the name of the manufacturer as the main producer.
• Labelling; the method of labelling the product should be unique and very attractive to the eye when seen by the consumer. The kind label used should not be hard to differentiate from other products. The label should contain the company logo and vision and the necessary details concerning the product like the date of manufacture, the expiry dates, method of application, health conditions and the ingredients used to manufacture the product (Belch et al, 2009). This would cause consumer awareness more about the product and develop curiosity about the product and how it is used.
• Packaging; the product should be packaged in environmental friendly pockets to the consumers. The products are packaged into different sizes, quality and shapes so that they increase the wide choices of the product and hence increase sales of the product.
• Sorting; for easier consumer identification, the product should be sorted into groups according to the color, size, quality, value and quantity (Kuester, 2014). This would reduce the time a consumer wastes while looking for a particular product in the shelves and the purchasing or demand would increase for that particular product well sorted.

The product to be more marketable, it has to be purchased by the consumer. The current marketing strategy used by many companies include; sale promotion and advertisements. Sale promotion, a company can engage through offering of free gifts, after sale services, free installation, commissions after purchase of more products, personal selling (Sandhussen & Richard, 2000). All these aim at improving the marketing capacity of the product in the market. Sale advertisement involves the use of media, shows and exhibitions, billboards, coupons, internet etc. they help in marketing the product to the market and create customer awareness of the existence of such product in the market.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Due to high competition and many products in the market, consumers purchasing behavior keeps on changing with change in the production methods. A positive consumer behavior change has positive influence in the demand of the product in the market while a negative consumer purchasing behavior would influence the production and marketing of the company negatively. A company needs to treat consumers well in order to influence the purchasing decisions of the consumers. Before, a consumer makes purchasing decisions there must be stages it involves before making final purchasing decisions. A company producing better quality goods would get high positive consumer purchasing decisions.

There are number of strategies a company should make in order to make their services or products more marketable. They include.;

• Pricing Strategy: offering lower prices as compared to other competitors would attract more customers than a company selling at higher prices. Their products would be cheaper than their competitors hence more customers would buy their products (Foxall, 2005). The c products should be cost effective to the buyer and the producer hence would promote higher purchase due to affordability.
• Promotion; promotion is a method to penetrate the market. A company engages in sale promotion would make their products or services more known and the consumers would get the necessary product information like the product name, quality, price and where it is found (Maclnnis et al 2014). This involves communication and passing of relevant information of the product to the consumer using the right channel of communication that is widely spread and able to be used by the consumers.
• Place’a company should ensure the product is readily available to the consumer at the time of need, at the right place and form, they need it. A product that is readily available attracts more customers than a product not readily available. The products to be sold to the market should be available at the convenience of the buyer.at the time of need.  
• Product; company producing more standardised products attracts more reliable customers than a company offering low quality products or services to the consumers (Howard & Sheth, 1969). The product should meet the needs and wants of the consumer by making them satisfied. This would promote product loyalty and continuous consumer purchase.

References

Belch, G, Belch, MA, Kerr, G, and Powell, I 2009, Advertising and Promotion Management; An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, McGraw Hill, Sydney, Australia

Belch, G, Belch, MA, Kerr, G, and Powell, I 2009   Advertising and Promotion Management; An Integrated Marketing Communication Perspective, McGraw Hill, Sydney, Australia

Howard, J , A & Sheth, JN, 1969, The Theory of Buyer Behavior, Wiley,  New York

Foxall, G 2005, Understanding Consumer Choice, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan

Kuester, S 2014 Mkt 301; Strategic Marketing & Marketing in Specific Industry Contexts, University of Mannheim, 3012

Lynn R, Kahle, Angeline G, Close, D 2011, Consumer Behavior Knowledge for Effective Sports and Event Marketing, New York

MacInnis, D, J; Pieteres, R, & Huyer, W, D 2014, Consumer Behavior, Cengage Learning, Auustralia

Sandhusen, R &Richard L, 2000, Marketing. Retrieved on 2, June, 2017

Rossiter, J & Bellman, S 2005, Marketing Communications; Theory and Applications, Pearson, Australia