Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Feb 20th, 2013 by WendyS
An interesting blog post, “Playing Chicken with your Customers” by Shelley McQuade, described two scenarios that reflected the importance of understanding consumer behaviours.
In the first scenario, two customers have an item in hand ready to purchase and trying to find an additional item. After wandering through many aisles, they still could not find the item or any sales person. Thus, they gave up in the end and decided to order the item online instead. In the second scenario, a customer is shopping online but could not find the “submit payment” button on the website after she made her purchasing decisions.
Both scenarios showed that companies did not make purchasing easier (or easy enough) for consumers. Consumer behaviours can be affected by various factors, including: psychological, social, situation, and the marketing mixes (4 P’s). The first scenario showed the importance of “place” for a product. If the product is not distributed in somewhere convenient for the consumers, they are not likely to buy it. Moreover, they will have a negative impression on the store, and probably spread the words among their friends, which are referred to as negative word of mouth.
The second scenario suggested that companies should make their websites more user – friendly. Depending on their target group, they may face various generations of customers. Older generations such as the Babyboomers, Generation X’s are not as technologically savvy as Generation Y. Therefore, companies should make websites simple and straight forward to make purchasing experience better for consumers.
This article demonstrated the importance of understanding consumer behaviours, which is crucial for companies in order to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage and succeed.