Consumer Behavior - Emerging Issues
With the advent of technology, consumers now have access to all kinds of information regarding every product and service they want to avail. Consumers have become smarter, their tastes and preferences have changed. What used to be the luxuries of life have now become the necessity.
The competition has increased and brands are struggling to beat the competition. Let us examine some of the issues in the field of consumer behavior that has emerged these days because of the overall advancement of technology and people.
Consumer Behavior – Past and the Present
The figure given below will help you develop the clear difference between the consumers of yesterday and today.
Write down three points that come to your mind with reference to consumer of yesterday and today while seeing the above two images.
Thus, it is clearly evident that −
Consumer of yesterday didn’t had choices to choose from
They have to go to different shops to shop their needs and requirements
Consumers had low buying power, and were more cost conscious as compared to brand / quality conscious
The Focus Yesterday was to fulfil the basic need instead of impressing others
Issues in Consumer Behavior
Consumerism has been identified as the root cause of the emerging issues in consumer behavior. Consumerism is used in context of advancement of consumer oriented tendencies, marked by availability of a variety of manufactured consumer goods and active advertising of the products in various media.
To offer products and services that are in demand, today’s marketers need to identify the factors that influence buying behavior. Some of these factors are mentioned below −
Quality
Consumers are now interested in items that deliver a variety of features along with quality. Today consumers look for products that are long lasting and reliable. This feature has increased the time invested by the manufacturers in choosing the quality of components to be used in making these products.
Added Advantage
Today consumers want to experience something new and are inclined to shop from the place where they get added advantages. For instance a store offering special discount.
According to ConsumerAffairs.com, 35% of consumers state that they are more likely to shop at a store where special promotions or discounts are available.
Marketing Apps
Today cell phones create another venue for consumers to do a variety of things. Cell phones today are not only used to make phone calls or send messages but to perform a variety of other functions, such as shop and surf the Internet.
This has led to increased consumer convenience where they can shop from anywhere across the world.
