Lesson 3 – CHOOSING AND USING PRODUCTS
Unit 3 – Buying, Using, and Disposing
Overview
Many contextual factors affect our choice, such as our mood, whether we feel time pressure to make the purchase, and the particular reason we need the product. In some situations, such as when we buy a car or a home, the salesperson or realtor plays a pivotal role in our final selection. Also, today people often use the Web to arm themselves with product and price information before they even enter a store; this puts more pressure on retailers to deliver the value their customers expect.
Learning Objectives
• Many factors at the time of purchase dramatically influence the consumer’s decision-making process.
• The information a store’s layout, Web site, or salespeople provides strongly influences a purchase decision.
• The growth of a “sharing economy” changes how many consumers think about buying rather than renting products.
• Our decisions about how to dispose of a product are as important as how we decide to obtain it in the first place.
Course materials
Many factors at the time of purchase dramatically influence the consumer’s decision-making process.
Many factors affect a purchase. These include the consumer’s antecedent state (e.g., his or her mood, time pressure, or disposition toward shopping). Time is an important resource that often determines how much effort and search will go into a decision. Our moods are influenced by the degree of pleasure and arousal a store environment creates.
The usage context of a product is a segmentation variable; consumers look for different product attributes depending on the use to which they intend to put their purchase. The presence or absence of other people (co-consumers)—and the types of people they are—can also affect a consumer’s decisions. The shopping experience also is a pivotal part of the purchase decision. In many cases, retailing is like theater: The consumer’s evaluation of stores and products may depend on the type of “performance” he witnesses. The actors (e.g., salespeople), the setting (the store environment), and the props (e.g., store displays) influence this evaluation. Like a brand personality, a number of factors, such as perceived convenience, sophistication, and expertise of salespeople, determine store image. With
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increasing competition from nonstore alternatives, creating a positive shopping experience has never been more important. Online shopping is growing in importance, and this new way to acquire products has both good (e.g., convenience) and bad (e.g., security) aspects.
The information a store’s layout, web site, or salespeople provides strongly influences a purchase decision.
Because we don’t make many purchase decisions until we’re actually in the store, Point-of-purchase (POP) stimuli are important sales tools. These include product samples, elaborate package displays, place-based media, and in-store promotional materials such as “shelf talkers.” POP stimuli are particularly useful in promoting impulse buying, which happens when a consumer yields to a sudden urge for a product. Increasingly, mobile shopping apps are also playing a key role. The consumer’s encounter with a salesperson is a complex and important process. The outcome can be affected by such factors as the salesperson’s similarity to the customer and his or her perceived credibility.
The growth of a “sharing economy” changes how many consumers think about buying rather than renting products.
In the rapidly growing sharing economy people rent what they need rather than buy it. New technologies make this process much easier and online networks allow us to form bonds of trust with strangers. In addition, many consumers no longer place a premium on owning products and prefer to “borrow” them only for the specific times when they actually need them.
Our decisions about how to dispose of a product are as important as how we decide to obtain it in the first place.
Concern about the environment and waste make the issue of product disposal key in many categories. In addition to understanding if and how consumers recycle, newer recommerce models such as swishing are emerging that enable people to share more of their used goods with one another rather than disposing of them.
Read:
Chapter 10 – Buying, Using, and Disposing
Consumer Behavior 12e
by: Michael R. Solomon
Activities/assessment:
Answer the following Review Questions:
1. What is time poverty, and how can it influence our purchase decisions?
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2. A consumption situation has a buyer, seller, and a product. What else would you add?
3. List three separate motivations for shopping, and give an example of each.
4. What are some important pros and cons of e-commerce?
5. List three factors that help to determine store image.
6. What is the difference between unplanned buying and impulse buying?
7. How do business models in the sharing economy differ from traditional purchase processes?
8. What is the difference between recycling and lateral cycling?