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Introduction
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Understanding Customers
The study of groups, organizations, or individuals is associated with the disposal, use, and purchase of services and goods. Proper analysis of consumer behavior helps the business organizations to gain insight into their attitude toward the product. It also influences the buying behavior of the consumers and their preferences, so understanding and analyzing the customer’s behavior is very important from the economic point of view of society. A different range of research methods has been applied to study the trends in consumer behavior. The ideas of psychology are incorporated in this context to comprehend the behavior of the consumers. The market demand for a particular product keeps on changing, so the organizations must also focus on the changing demand trends and modify their services or goods accordingly. This study explores the Contemporary perspectives and decision-making style of the consumers. The study also focuses on societal customer behavior and the upcoming trends in the market.
Consumption Perspective
Consumption can be defined as the use of any products by individual customers or by other organisational consumers. Consumption can be called the measurement of uses of the goods or services by any type of consumer. When the consumers buy and use any product to satiate themselves, whether it is for basic or not, that leads them towards a huge satisfaction by using that particular product, then it is called the Consumption perspective.
Consumption Theory
This theory claims that if people received the money in an unanticipated amount, a human tendency arises among them to spend that money on unnecessary products and services. They are very likely to follow this human nature unconsciously (Golderzahi, V. and Pao, 2018). Whenever people get any unexpected amount of cash from an irregular source that might help them in increasing their disposable income. They unknowingly tend to spend that money on consumption of the things that they might not need to live their life.
In order to understand consumer behavior, the knowledge of this theory has a significant part. This theory helps the companies to set the price for a specific product by assuming the community of the future buyers of that product. As consumer behaviour is the study of the individual, groups, and organisational activities that are related to purchasing products and services, therefore, it includes the psychology, and emotion of the consumer along with their economic condition of them (Heinonen and Medb, 2018). This theory suggests that the pricing of any product should be done by anticipating the economic condition and psychological condition of the future buyer group.
Individual involvement and decision-making
Decision-making is an important aspect of customer behavior, and there are five basic steps involved in this process. Han (2021) has suggested that identification of the problem is the initial step, followed by its analysis and evaluation. In the next step, the decision is made on the purchase of a product, and finally, the customer evaluation of the post-purchase experience is done. Customer behavior is essential in the tourism business as well; in case many people have a tendency to visit a particular place, it has been noticed that the site has become popular among the masses by means of social media posts. In the tourism business availability of proper food and lodging facilities, along with other amenities, attract the tourists to a particular spot.
In a business organization, the board of directors, stakeholders, and shareholders must united take the decision to study the trend in consumer behavior. Recognition of the customer demand must be the initial stage of the interpretation of customer behavior. Consumer behavior also varies based on geographical location and market scenario (Stanciu et al. 2020). Before buying any product, the customers have a tendency to compare the product on the basis of brand and price. This process of decision-making can be extended, nominal or limited in nature.
Importance of individual consumers and perceptual process
Perception is a particular procedure to organize, select, and interrupt the data. This entire procedure has included the specific perception for selecting the stimuli, which passes by the perceptual filters. These are organized in such patterns and structures, and that are interpreted from past experiences. In the opinion of Petrescu et al. (2020), though the overall perception is very large and also the psychological and cognitive procedure, how they perceive all people and some objects all around them affects their communication. They all have responded variously to the specific object or a particular person that most of them would perceive as very favourably that they would do something they would find unfavourable. Ultimately this particular perceptual procedure has improved the perception of a customer of the formulates and brands that position the proper competition on what all of their marketers would call such a different positioning strategy.
The perception is a procedure that shows how they interpret the whole world across them and also make such a proper sense of that in their overall brain. As cited by Mahr et al. (2019), they should be done by the stimuli, which certainly affect their various senses such as hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell. They should combine all of these senses to make a difference. However, when the particular blindfolds had to come and all of them would be drunk like beer, most of them described the taste as “watery”. This has suggested their customer’s interpretation solely could influence the overall attitude to their self-brand and product.
Consumers in society
There are different types of customers in a society; products and services vary according to the need and demands of the consumers. Arora et al. (2020) have pointed out that children have different types of demand for products; market demand of teenagers and school students is also different from others. Similarly, the adults have a demand for different services and products, and so do the old people. The company first needs to do a market survey to comprehend the market demand. Customers have a tendency to stay loyal to the brand that they have bought for years. Devising the budget or price of the product or service must be done accordingly so as to meet the budget range of the customers. The company managers need to take the help of the consultancy to comprehend the market trend regarding the market demand for the product. Consumer behavior can be dissonant or of complex type based on the target market.
It can be easily illustrated with a simple example. People prefer to have junk food, but observing the recent trends, it can be said that customers all over the globe have become more health-conscious now. Cox et al. (2020) have opined that the customers have a tendency to change their food habits and shift to nutritious food options. So, the companies must also amend their food items according to consumer demand. Adoption of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can help the organization to get feedback from the customers. The tourism industry must focus on maintaining the safety and security of the tourists by paying proper attention to the sanitization process (Hamilton et al. 2019). The hotels must maintain cleanliness and spray sanitizers and encourage the use of masks to maintain the safety of all. The employees of the hotel must all be vaccinated, and this can encourage more tourists to visit that hotel.
Future trends related to consumer behavior
In this era of digitization, customers are highly influenced by advertisements on the social media platform. As a result, the organizations must focus on advertising their product or services on social media and other platforms such as television and radio. Alghizzawi (2019) has claimed that email marketing is another way of staying connected with the customers; giving offers and discounts on certain festive occasions can enhance the demand for that product. It can be better illustrated with another example that cites with time, the online sale of materials has increased a lot. The pandemic crisis has driven people to avoid crowds by doing online shopping.
The trends of online shopping can accelerate further in the upcoming days, so the organizations must try to make the online delivery of their product free from shipment charges. Han (2021) has stated that consumer behavior, in most cases, is driven by the community, so the company must align the concept of sustainability with its working objectives. Incurring profit is not the only motto of the business, but it must also share certain corporate responsibilities toward society. People refined confined within their home boundaries due to the pandemic situation; as a result, the people have become more depressed, so the tendency among people to go on long tours to refresh themselves has increased.
Conclusion
It is a difficult task to predict consumer behavior; however, it is an important aspect in the determination of market strategies of operation management. There are several steps needed to analyze and assess the customer's behavior. It can be concluded that digitization has also changed the customer needs and demands, which vary according to geographical boundaries. It can be concluded that marketers study the various purchasing trends and strategies associated with the operational market. Consumer behavior helps to analyze the companies which product has become obsolete in the market and which ones have enhanced demand in the target market. Studying consumer behavior helps companies to modify their products and services according to customer demand.
References
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Stanciu, S., Radu, R.I., Sapira, V., Bratoveanu, B.D. and Florea, A.M., (2020). Consumer Behavior in Crisis Situations. Research on the Effects of COVID-19 in Romania. Annals of the University Dunarea de Jos of Galati: Fascicle: I, Economics & Applied Informatics, 26(1).
