Companies nowadays are more and more customer-oriented. Under today’s macroeconomic conditions, associating with the latest technologies can no longer satisfy consumers’ needs. The key factor of succeeding is now how to quickly adapt to the customer buying dynamics. The businesses have shifted from technology-oriented to customer-focused.
Many companies can easily adapt to the new technologies, like smart phones and Internet commerce, but they fail to catch up with the changes in the buying and social behavior of consumers. To fully understand the consumers’ behaviors, one has to have a clear concept of how consumers make decisions. The factors that the article summarized are fairly consistent with the concepts we learned in class. For instance, the Social Proof, Authority, and Liking section in the paragraph are also covered in the text book. Basically every customer’s decision is made based on or is involved with the social factors. The desire for social proof usually influences our decisions of purchasing items, such as outfits and decorations, as we want to be admired and accepted by the crowd around us. Even when we are indecisive on purchasing, we will often turn to the people we know, as known as the reference group, summarized under the Liking section in the article. From time to time, we will make purchases based on the desire of becoming the persons we admire, who are as well part of the reference group. It is claimed that almost 50% of shoppers surveyed admitted to making at least one purchase based on a social media friend recommendation. The Authorities, on the other hand, explains how consumers conduct information searches.
Besides the sections mentioned above, the Reciprocity, Scarcity, and Consistency also explain a certain level of significant consumer behaviors. “Repaying favors”, “less is more”, and “being loyal to certain brands” are three large social habits that influences the consumers’ behaviors. Only companies paying attention to these have a larger chance of surviving in the business world.
