Blog: Consumer Who? Consumer You!

 

Hello Bloggers,

Do you ever consider analyzing what kind of customer you are? YES, YOU! Well, I want to share with you the type of customer I am; hopefully, you can identify yourself. The term customer can be broken down into two different forms.

 "Individual consumers purchase goods and services to satisfy their own per- sonal needs and wants or to satisfy the needs and wants of others." (Kardes, F., Cronley, M., & Cline, T. (2020)

Or

"Organizational consumers purchase goods and services in order to:

1. produce other goods or services 
2. resell them to other organizations or to individual consumers 
3. help manage and run their organization7" (Kardes, F., Cronley, M., & Cline, T. (2020)

I am more of an Individual consumer, ensuring that I purchase based on my need. Certain people only buy products from specific brands; I only care about the brand if it works properly. Customer response is vital when a customer purchases a product or watches a marketing ad. There are three types of customer response: Emotional or affective response, Mental or cognitive response, and Behavioral response. 

I lean towards the "Mental or cognitive responses." include a consumer's thought processes, opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and intentions about products and services. Weighing the pros and cons." (Kardes, F., Cronley, M., & Cline, T. (2020) The opinions of others influence buying process for me, I tend to look at reviews online before purchasing any equipment. Typically I ask friends or relatives what their past experience is with specific things to ensure I understand if I would like it or not. 

 

I am highly influenced by marketing research. Ensuring that I have a complete understanding of what it is that I am purchasing is essential. Marketing design is secondary; most of the time is more of a web design that can lead me to back out from buying a product from a particular company, but that is rare. In most cases, websites and marketing design need to look "Trustworthy" to allow customers to feel engaged and navigate the product catalog. In many instances, companies overcharge for service based on the name and history of the company, which is excellent because you earned a reputation but are confident someone is doing the same great job for less of a charge. Overall I look for quantitative and qualitative reviews in the market. What are the opinions of people that true fans of certain products? 

 

• Do you experience any post-purchase behavior?

I will admit I DO! I constantly judge a company by the first product I purchase, which leads to the decision if I buy from that brand ever again. It is a weird scenario because certain companies produce different products, but if I buy one product from that company that doesn't work correctly, ill be hesitant to purchase the second one. 

References:

Kardes, F., Cronley, M., & Cline, T. (2020). Consumer Behavior (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning US. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781305161689