CHAPTER 10
BUYING, USING AND DISPOSING
I/ SITUATIONAL EFFECTS ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
As Figure 10.1 illustrates, 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, a salesperson or realtor plays a vital
role in our final selection.
Today, people often use the web to arm themselves with product and price information before
they even enter a dealership or a store.
As a result, this puts more pressure on retailers to deliver the value their customers expect.
*The Consumption Situation
A consumption situation includes a buyer, a seller, and a product or service—but also many
other factors, such as the reason we want to make a purchase and how the physical environment
makes us feel.
Common sense tells us that we tailor our purchases to specific occasions and that the way we
feel at a specific point in time affects what we want to do—or buy.
Smart marketers understand these patterns and plan their efforts to coincide with situations in
which we are most prone to purchase.
A person’s situational self-image: is the role he or she plays at any one time—helps to
determine what he or she wants to buy or consume.
If we systematically identify important usage situations, we can tailor market segmentation
strategies to ensure that our offerings meet the specific needs these situations create.
Consumer’s physical and social environment affects his or her motives to use a product, as
well as how he or she will evaluate the item.
Important cues include his or her immediate environment as well as the amount and type of
other consumers who are there as well.
Dimensions of the physical environment, such as decor, odors, and even temperature, can
significantly influence consumption.
*Temporal Factors
Common sense tells us that we think more about what we want to buy when we have the
luxury to take our time.
Time poverty: when many consumers believe they are more pressed for time than ever
before.
The reality is that we simply have more options for spending our time, so we feel pressured
by the weight of all of these choices.
The psychological dimension of time—how we actually experience it—is
an important factor in queuing theory, the mathematical study of waiting lines.
Our experience when we wait has a big effect on our evaluations of what we get at the end of
the wait.
In such situations, the negative feelings that long waits arouse can quickly turn people off,
whereas consumers may buy more if they have to wait longer in line.
II/ SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Nowadays, we have many paths available for us to buy the things we want. Some paths offer
great convenience or even significant savings; others stimulate, educate, or even titillate.
Differences in the shopping process can bring different experiences, and thus, different value to
customers. Therefore, design thinking is so hot right now as it emphasizes the importance of
creating products, services, and stores that aren’t just pretty but also make sense in terms of how
customers actually live their lives and use these things. It’s time for marketers to step out of their
little boxes and actually cross over to the consumer’s perspective to understand their products
from the buyer’s perspective.
Customer journey: This methodology encourages brands to map out in excruciating
detail all the steps a customer takes while they interact with the company, spanning a
variety of touchpoints by which the customer moves from awareness to engagement
and purchase. A Japanese philosophy named Gemba said that: it’s essential to send
marketers and designers to the precise place where consumers use the product or
service rather than to ask laboratory subjects to use it in a simulated environment.
Mood can affect the purchase decision. Two basic dimensions, pleasure and arousal,
determine whether we will react positively or negatively to a consumption
environment. Different combinations of pleasure and arousal levels result in a variety
of emotional states.
1/ When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping
Shopping is how we acquire needed products and services, but social motives for shopping
also are important. The reason for shopping may be either utilitarian (functional or tangible) or
hedonic (pleasurable or intangible) reasons. And motivation influences the type of shopping
environment that will be attractive or annoying. Hedonic shopping motives include the following:
Social experiences; Sharing of common interests; Status; The thrill of the hunt…
2/ E-Commerce: Clicks versus Bricks
The rate of people buying things online increases significantly all over the world
making e-commerce becoming more and more common. The experience of acquiring
a product or service may be quite different offline versus online. There are two
tendencies: From bricks to clicks and From clicks to bricks. Although many people
wonder whether e-commerce will replace traditional retailing due to the development
of technology, the fact that many pure play businesses ( those that only operate
online) are investing in these types of physical stores.
In the past few years, we witnessed the appearance and dramatic development of
virtual currency. Many consumers switch from cash and credit cards to digital
wallets, which are electronic devices that allow an individual to make e-commerce
transactions. We cannot tell if cash will become old fashioned or not but get ready for
the currency revolution.
More generally, online shoppers value these aspects of a website:
The ability to click on an item to create a pop-up window with more details
about the product, including price, size, colors, and inventory availability.
The ability to click on an item and add it to your cart without leaving the page
you’re on.
The ability to “feel” merchandise through better imagery, more product
descriptions, and details.
The ability to enter all data related to your purchase on one page, rather than
going through several checkout pages.
The ability to mix and match product images on one page to determine
whether they look good together.
3/ Retailing As Theater
Retail environment can attract and keep customers in the stores. The quest to entertain means
that many stores go all out to create imaginative environments that transport shoppers to fantasy
worlds or provide other kinds of stimulation. We call this strategy retail theming. Innovative
merchants today use four basic kinds of theming techniques:
Landscape themes rely on associations with images of nature, Earth, animals, and
the physical body.
Marketscape themes build on associations with manufactured places.
Cyberspace themes build on images of information and communications
technology.
Mindscape themes draw on abstract ideas and concepts, introspection and fantasy,
and often possess spiritual overtones.
4/ Store image:
Stores have “personalities.” Some shops have clearly defined images (either good or bad).
Others tend to blend into the crowd. Some of the important dimensions of a store’s image are
location, merchandise, suitability, and the knowledge and congeniality of the sales staff. These
design features typically work together to create an overall impression.
Atmospherics: conscious designing of space and its various dimensions to evoke
certain effects in buyers.
5/ In-Store Decision Making
Although marketers can motivate their customers to buy products through advertising, store
environment exerts a strong influence on many purchases. Research evidence indicates that
consumers use mental budgets for grocery trips that are typically composed of both an itemized
portion and in-store slack. This means they typically decide beforehand on an amount they plan to
spend, but then they have an additional amount in mind (slack) they are willing to spend on
unplanned purchases.
6/ Spontaneous Shopping
Despite the fact that many customers have already had their shopping list in their mind, for
many reasons, things come up and make them pay more or eliminate some in their shopping list to
buy things which were not in the list.
When a shopper suddenly decides to buy something in the store, one of two different
processes explains why:
1. He or she engages in unplanned buying when he or she is unfamiliar with a
store’s layout or perhaps he or she is under some time pressure. Or, if a person
sees an item on a store shelf, this might be a reminder that he or she needs it.
2. He or she engages in impulse buying when he or she experiences a sudden,
unresistable urge.
7/ The Salesperson: A Lead Role in the Play
The salesperson is one of the most important players in the retailing drama. A (competent)
salesperson offers a lot of value because his or her expert advice makes the shopper’s choice
easier. Some of the factors that help to define a salesperson’s role (and effectiveness) are his or
her age, appearance, educational level, and motivation to sell. Furthermore, more effective
salespersons usually know their customers’ traits and preferences better than do ineffective
salespersons, and they adapt their approach to meet the needs of each specific customer.
III/OWNERSHIP AND THE SHARING ECONOMY
Sharing economy, sometimes called collaborative consumption. In this business model,
people rent what they need rather than buying it. Collaborative consumption communities
typically offer a website that allows individuals to list their services and a rating system that
allows both buyers and sellers to rate their experiences.
The sharing economy could be an opportunity for Việt Nam’s administrative reform toward
e-government to effectively participate in the digital economy and Industry 4.0,” she noted.
However, the sharing economy could also have potential challenges, making new
relationships arise and causing benefit conflicts with traditional business models.
“These challenges could be named as unequal competition, economic concentration and lack
of tools to protect consumers online. State management agencies could struggle to control the new
models, especially financial duties”.
The sharing economy is revolutionizing industries including taxis (Uber and Lyft), hospitality
(Airbnb), used books (Bookmooch), and even errand running (TaskRabbit).
What is fueling this revolution? It’s primarily due to the technology that dramatically lowers
transaction costs so that it’s much easier to share assets and track them. across large numbers of
people. Online payment systems make it easy to exchange money. Social networks create
communities and build trust among strangers who can access each other’s histories.
However, it’s not just ease of use that explains the rise of the sharing economy. We also can
point to a change in attitudes toward ownership, especially among younger consumers. Many
people believe overconsumption is putting our planet at risk, and half say they could happily live
without most of the items they own.
In addition, many people appreciate the intimacy of exchanging items with “real people”
rather than getting them from big companies. Many seem more than willing to do things with total
strangers our mothers used to warn us against: They stay in their homes, get in their cars, and
even wear their clothes. That’s one reason the notion of doing business with other consumers
rather than with companies goes by the name P2P commerce (peer-to-peer).
IV/ POSTPURCHASE SATISFACTION AND DISPOSAL
Our overall reactions to a product after we’ve bought it—what researchers call consumer
satisfaction/dissatisfaction (CS/D)—obviously play a big role in our future behavior. It’s a lot
easier to sell something once than to sell it again if it bombed the first time. We evaluate the
things we buy as we use them and integrate them into our daily consumption activities.
1/ Postpurchase Satisfaction
Consumers want quality and value. However, these terms have slippery meanings that are
hard for us to pin down.
Satisfaction or dissatisfaction is more than a reaction to how well a product or service
performs.
According to the expectancy disconfirmation model, we form beliefs about product
performance based on our prior experience with the product or communications about the product
that implies a certain level of quality. When something performs the way we thought it would, we
may not think much about it.
If it fails to live up to expectations, this may create negative feelings. However, if
performance happens to exceed our expectations, we’re happy campers.
This perspective underscores how important it is to manage expectations. We often trace a
customer’s dissatisfaction to his or her erroneous expectations of the company’s ability to deliver
a product or service. It’s just not realistic to think that everything will always turn out perfectly.
2/ Product Proposal
Product disposal definition is the process by which the goods a company produces are
destroyed or disposed of.
Green issues don’t end at the cash register. There is also the matter of what we do with our
things when we’re done with them. Product disposal is also an important element of consumer
behavior.
Still, we all have to get rid of our “stuff” at some point, either because it has served its
purpose or perhaps because it no longer fits with our view of ourselves (as when newlyweds
“upgrade” to a real place). Concern about the environment, coupled with a need for convenience,
makes ease of product disposal a key attribute in categories from razors to diapers.
In many cases, we acquire a new product even though the old one still functions—that’s one
of the hallmarks of our materialistic society. Some reasons to replace an item include a desire for
new features, a change in the individual’s environment (e.g., a refrigerator is the wrong color for a
freshly painted kitchen), or a change in the person’s role or self-image.
3/ Recycling and the Underground Economy
The issue of product disposition is vital because of its enormous public policy implications.
We live in a throwaway society, which creates problems for the environment and also results in a
great deal of unfortunate waste.
Indeed, analysts say that one-third of the food produced globally is never consumed! To
make matters worse, most food waste winds up in landfills where it decomposes and emits
methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
How do people decide whether to discard products or recycle them?
One study reported that the perceived effort involved in recycling was the best predictor of
whether people would go to the trouble. This pragmatic dimension outweighed general attitudes
toward recycling and the environment in predicting one’s intention to recycle. Of course, one way
to ease the pain is to reward consumers for recycling.
During lateral cycling, one consumer exchanges something he or she owns for something the
other person owns. Reusing other people’s things is especially important in our throwaway
society because, as one researcher put it, “there is no longer an ‘away’ to throw things to.”
Although traditional marketers don’t pay much attention to used product sellers, factors such as
concern about the environmental demand for quality, and cost and fashion consciousness make
these “secondary” markets more important.
