Fluent Essays

the key topic is about (CONSUMER BEHAVIOR)You should discuss one or more of the key topics raised during the week that intrigued you, surprised you or had the most relevance to you. Please note that your summary shouldn’t be an outline or re-cap of the entire chapter contents – but instead should reflect more personal, in-depth thoughts about just a few of the key topics that resonated or connected with you the most. Please remember there is a 250-word minimum for this assignment. lecture.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview CONSUMER BEHAVIOR To successfully sell to their potential customers, the retailer needs to understand how consumers make decisions regarding their purchases. Let’s take a walk through the mind of a consumer. (This process is outlined at the beginning of Chapter 4 – keep in mind that it is shown in a linear fashion, but often this process will have stops and loops and skips depending on the consumer, the product/service being purchased, etc.) The Buying Process • • • • • Need recognition – there is an unsatisfied need (utilitarian or hedonic?) Information search – looking internally and externally for ways to satisfy the need Evaluation – measuring the options (and the retailers that sell them) – check out the multiattribute model in Chapter 4 Choice of Store & Purchase – what is being bought, where and how? Post-purchase evaluation – how satisfied is the customer? Retailers must often stimulate need recognition in consumers in order to get them to buy. It’s one thing to realize you just ran out of milk, but did you know that you actually needed the Magic Bullet (Links to an external site.) to dice, chop, mix and help you entertain all of your friends (why can’t they all just eat what you serve instead of being so darned picky?!?) and create salsa in under 30 seconds? Types of Buying Decisions There are three main types of buying decisions: • • • Extended Problem Solving – considerable time and effort go into this type of buying decision and it often involves high risk (lots of money, long-term…a house, a car, a computer). Limited Problem Solving – involves a moderate amount of time and effort and might even involve more internal information (past brand experience or familiarity) than external information (another pair of jeans from Old Navy, but maybe a more recent style…). Habitual Decision-Making – involves little thought, and may involve brand loyalty (“the usual” brand of soda or cat food) or low importance (any brand of notebook paper or sugar). Social Factors Affecting Buying Decisions We as buyers are influenced by outside sources when making our buying decisions primarily our social environment. • • • • Economy – No big surprise here… out financial state (and our world’s financial state) will impact what we buy and when we buy it! Family – Is this a product to be used by the whole family? Reference Group – Seeking opinions from people who share like feelings, beliefs, or behavior (other MCC students, other marketing professionals, etc.) Culture – What are your core values? Are they based on your race, religion, ethnicity or your culture? RETAILING STRATEGIES DURING COVID-19 2 Market Segmentation Retailers cannot market to all people and do it successfully. There is a need to break the market down into smaller sizes. A retail market segment is a group of customers whose needs are satisfied by the same retail mix because they have similar needs. Examples of segmentation include: • • • • • • • Geographic segmentation – according to where the consumers live Demographic segmentation – based on age, race, gender, etc… characteristics that are easily measured Geodemographic – combining geographics and demographics Lifestyle segmentation – based on consumer psychographics, or how people live their lives (make sure to read about VALS types in Chapter 4!) Buying situation segmentation – based on buying habits Benefit segmentation - based on the benefits desired by the customers A mix of all of the above segmentation strategies: for example, people who live in the northeast that are between 40-55 years old who buy more than 5 pizzas a month. This next part isnt in the text, but its a nice review from MKTG 1010. Theres no “perfect” approach to segmenting the market and typically a business will use a variety of segmentation schemes to get at their target customers. No matter the approach, there are four criteria that should be used to evaluate the usefulness of a segmentation method. • • • • Actionable – the definition of the segment clearly indicates what the retailer should do to satisfy the customer needs Identifiable – clearly identified customers allow the retailer to determine who is in the segment and to communicate with them Substantial – the segment must be large enough to support a unique retailing mix (the Internet has allowed for that group of people to be more geographically dispersed, so you don’t have to have a million porcelain cat figurine collectors just in metro Detroit to support your new porcelain cat figurine store, you can access people all over the world!) Reachable– the customers are accessible through some communication medium Once the retailer has found out all of this information how do they use it? The information is used to establish a marketing strategy that will appeal to the customers they are targeting. And we will get more into that as we go forward in our MKTG 1020 course ... Purchase answer to see full attachment