This is What I am!!!

Business buyers respond to many influences when they make their decisions.When suppliers offerings are similiar,business buyers can satisfy the purchasing requirements with any suppliers,and they place more weight on the personal treatement they receive.When suppliers pfferings differ substaatially,business buyers are more accountable for their choices and pay more attention to economic factors.

Categories that Effect the Consumer Buying Decision Process

A consumer, making a purchase decision will be affected by the following three factors:

-Personal
-Psychological
-Social

The marketer must be aware of these factors in order to develop an appropriate MM for its target market.

Personal
Unique to a particular person. Demographic Factors. Sex, Race, Age etc.
Who in the family is responsible for the decision making.
Young people purchase things for different reasons than older people.

Psychological factors
Psychological factors include:

Motives
A motive is an internal energizing force that orients a person's activities toward satisfying a need or achieving a goal.Actions are effected by a set of motives, not just one. If marketers can identify motives then they can better develop a marketing mix.
MASLOW hierarchy of needs!!

-Physiological
-Safety
-Love and Belonging
-Esteem
-Self Actualization
-Need to determine what level of the hierarchy the consumers are at to determine what motivates their purchases.

Perception
What do we see?? Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information inputs to produce meaning. IE we chose what info we pay attention to, organize it and interpret it.Information inputs are the sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch.Selective Exposure-select inputs to be exposed to our awareness. More likely if it is linked to an event, satisfies current needs, intensity of input changes (sharp price drop).

Selective Distortion-Changing/twisting current received information, inconsistent with beliefs.

Advertisers that use comparative advertisements (pitching one product against another), have to be very careful that consumers do not distort the facts and perceive that the advertisement was for the competitor. A current example...MCI and AT&T...do you ever get confused?

Selective Retention-Remember inputs that support beliefs, forgets those that don't.
Average supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting 30 minutes-60% of purchases are unplanned. Exposed to 1,500 advertisement per day. Can't be expected to be aware of all these inputs, and certainly will not retain many.

Interpreting information is based on what is already familiar, on knowledge that is stored in the memory.

Problems marketing wine from South Africa. Consumers have strong perceptions of the country, and hence its products.

Ability and Knowledge
Need to understand individuals capacity to learn. Learning, changes in a person's behavior caused by information and experience. Therefore to change consumers' behavior about your product, need to give them new information re: product...free sample etc.
South Africa...open bottle of wine and pour it!! Also educate american consumers about changes in SA. Need to sell a whole new country.

When making buying decisions, buyers must process information.Knowledge is the familiarity with the product and expertise.

Inexperience buyers often use prices as an indicator of quality more than those who have knowledge of a product.
Non-alcoholic Beer example: consumers chose the most expensive six-pack, because they assume that the greater price indicates greater quality.

Learning is the process through which a relatively permanent change in behavior results from the consequences of past behavior.


Attitudes
Knowledge and positive and negative feelings about an object or activity-maybe tangible or intangible, living or non- living.....Drive perceptions
Individual learns attitudes through experience and interaction with other people.
Consumer attitudes toward a firm and its products greatly influence the success or failure of the firm's marketing strategy.

Honda "You meet the nicest people on a Honda", dispel the unsavory image of a motorbike rider, late 1950s. Changing market of the 1990s, baby boomers aging, Hondas market returning to hard core. To change this they have a new slogan "Come ride with us".

Attitudes and attitude change are influenced by consumers personality and lifestyle.

Consumers screen information that conflicts with their attitudes. Distort information to make it consistent and selectively retain information that reinforces our attitudes. IE brand loyalty.

There is a difference between attitude and intention to buy (ability to buy).

Personality
all the internal traits and behaviors that make a person unique, uniqueness arrives from a person's heredity and personal experience. Examples include:
-Workaholism
-Compulsiveness
-Self confidence
-Friendliness
-Adaptability
-Ambitiousness
-Dogmatism
-Authoritarianism
-Introversion
-Extroversion
-Aggressiveness
-Competitiveness.

Traits effect the way people behave. Marketers try to match the store image to the perceived image of their customers.
There is a weak association between personality and Buying Behavior, this may be due to unreliable measures. Nike ads. Consumers buy products that are consistent with their self concept.


Lifestyles
Recent US trends in lifestyles are a shift towards personal independence and individualism and a preference for a healthy, natural lifestyle.
Lifestyles are the consistent patterns people follow in their lives.

EXAMPLE healthy foods for a healthy lifestyle. Sun tan not considered fashionable in US until 1920's. Now an assault by the American Academy of Dermatology.

Extra credit assignment from the news group, to access Value and Lifestyles (VALS) Program, complete the survey and Email alex@udel.edu the results. This is a survey tool that marketers can use to better understand their target market(s).
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Social Factors
Consumer wants, learning, motives etc. are influenced by opinion leaders, person's family, reference groups, social class and culture.

Opinion leaders
Spokespeople etc. Marketers try to attract opinion leaders...they actually use (pay) spokespeople to market their products. Michael Jordon (Nike, McDonalds, Gatorade etc.)
Can be risky...Michael Jackson...OJ Simpson...Chevy Chase


Roles and Family Influences
Role...things you should do based on the expectations of you from your position within a group.People have many roles.

Husband, father, employer/ee. Individuals role are continuing to change therefore marketers must continue to update information.
Family is the most basic group a person belongs to. Marketers must understand:

that many family decisions are made by the family unit consumer behavior starts in the family unit family roles and preferences are the model for children's future family (can reject/alter/etc) family buying decisions are a mixture of family interactions and individual decision making family acts an interpreter of social and cultural values for the individual.
The Family life cycle: families go through stages, each stage creates different consumer demands:
bachelor stage...most of BUAD301
newly married, young, no children...me
full nest I, youngest child under 6
full nest II, youngest child 6 or over
full nest III, older married couples with dependant children
empty nest I, older married couples with no children living with them, head in labor force
empty nest II, older married couples, no children living at home, head retired
solitary survivor, in labor force
solitary survivor, retired
Modernized life cycle includes divorced and no children.

Because 2 income families are becoming more common, the decision maker within the family unit is changing...also, family has less time for children, and therefore tends to let them influence purchase decisions in order to alleviate some of the guilt. (Children influence about $130 billion of goods in a year) Children also have more money to spend themselves.

Reference Groups
Individual identifies with the group to the extent that he takes on many of the values, attitudes or behaviors of the group members.

Families, friends, sororities, civic and professional organizations.
Any group that has a positive or negative influence on a persons attitude and behavior.
Membership groups (belong to)

Affinity marketing is focused on the desires of consumers that belong to reference groups. Marketers get the groups to approve the product and communicate that approval to its members. Credit Cards etc.!!

The degree to which a reference group will affect a purchase decision depends on an individuals susceptibility to reference group influence and the strength of his/her involvement with the group.


Social Class
an open group of individuals who have similar social rank. The rank with criteria; occupation, education, income, wealth, race, ethnic groups and possessions.
Social class influences many aspects of our lives. IE upper middle class prefer luxury cars Mercedes.

upper-upper class > inherited wealth, aristocratic names.
Lower-upper class > newer social elite, from current professionals and corporate elite
Upper-middle class > college graduates, managers and professionals
Middle Americans-middle class > average pay white collar workers and blue collar friends
Working class- average pay blue collar workers
Lower Americans-lower class > working, not on welfare
Lower-lower class > on welfare

Social class determines to some extent, the types, quality, quantity of products that a person buys or uses.

Lower class people tend to stay close to home when shopping, do not engage in much prepurchase information gathering.Stores project definite class images.

Family, reference groups and social classes are all social influences on consumer behavior. All operate within a larger culture.


Culture and Sub-culture
Culture refers to the set of values, ideas, and attitudes that are accepted by a homogenous group of people and transmitted to the next generation.
Culture also determines what is acceptable with product advertising. Culture determines what people wear, eat, reside and travel. Cultural values are good health, education, individualism and freedom.

Culture can be divided into subcultures:

geographic regions
human characteristics such as age and ethnic background.
IE West Coast, teenage and Asian American.
Culture effects what people buy, how they buy and when they buy.

Well practially i can remember about my Mp3 of Exibel ,which is a personal product of Clas Ohlson.Clas Ohlson is a Swedish chain that sells technical tools, boats, car accessories, electronics, computer accessories and clocks. It is the largest hardware chain in Scandinavia.

It originated in 1918 as a mail order business based at Insjön, Dalarna (and was well known as such), expanding into the retail business only in 1989. [1]
It will start opening shops in the UK during 2008/2009 in the London area.
Clas Ohlson AB was founded by Clas Ohlson (1895–1979).

I found the product from the magazine of Clas ohlson.I had chosen another mp3.But when i saw that Mp3 in the magazine and found that the price is ok for me.I decided to take this.Also one more effect that the 1st one was without charger and the other one was with charger with USB cord.So for the detailed infroming in add i influenced to buy that.