Bus304 Segmenting Consumer Decision-Making Styles Answers

• Internal Code :
• Subject Code : BUS304
• University : Kings Own Institute
• Subject Name : Consumer Behaviour

Consumer Behaviour

Table of Content

Executive Summary

Introduction

Importance of Marketing Strategy

Internal Factors & Consumer’s Buying Decision

External Factors & Consumer’s Buying Decision

Consumer’s Decision-Making Process- E-Bay

Significance of Digital Marketing

Influence of digital marketing on consumer behavior

Conclusion

References

Executive Summary of Segmenting Consumer Decision-Making Styles

The main purpose of this report was to analyze the marketing strategy of the E-Bay company and the impact of the consumer behavior on the marketing strategies framed by the concerned organization. The report has discussed about the concept of Consumer DNA used in the marketing strategy of E-Bay along with the influence of both internal and external factors on the purchase making decisions on the part of the customers of the organization.

Introduction to Segmenting Consumer Decision-Making Styles

The E-Bay is the biggest virtual marketplace for commercial activities both on a large scale as well as a small-scale basis. The company was established in the year 1999, in the form of ebay.com.au and has developed from a virtual auction channel to a booming retail organization with over 40,000 small scale businesses trading their products and services on it (Haryani et al., 2018). Moreover, even beyond 11 million exclusive customers from Australia accesses the website every month. Furthermore, near about 3000 people of Australia has earned $1 million from their sales on E-Bay Australia which is even beyond that earned in the UK as well as in US on the per capital basis.

The main purpose of this report is to explore the marketing program as well as the customer behavior procedure in the context of the E-Bay Australia. In the first part of the report, the significance of building efficient marketing strategies would be discussed and also the way in which the customers create an impact on the marketing strategy of the concerned organization. In the second part of the report due amount of consideration would be given to the way in which certain internal conditions like that of the perception, drive, learning, behavior as well as personality creates an influence on the purchase decision in terms of the customers of the concerned organization. In the third part of the report, consideration would be given towards exploring certain external conditions like that of the cultural, social as well as reference groups that create an impact on the purchase decision of the customers of the concerned organization. Furthermore, consideration would also be given to the process in which the customers make their decision to purchase. Finally, the significance of digital marketing will be discussed along with its impact on the purchasing decision of the customers.

Importance of Marketing Strategies

Here are some of the significance of a marketing strategy:

• An effective marketing strategy offers an organization with a threshold against its rival companies.
• An effective marketing strategy will assist an organization in building commodities and services with the most efficient profit-generating ability (Godey et al., 2016).
• Moreover, it will assist an organization in terms of exploring those segments that will be influenced in terms of the growth of the organization and hence will help that particular organization in making a plan that will meet the needs and requirements of the concerned organization (Morgan et al., 2019).
• A marketing strategy also has the potential to fix an appropriate cost for the commodities and services for the organization by means of conducting a research in terms of the market.
• Furthermore, having an effective marketing strategy will maintain smooth coordination among the different departments of an organization (.Patrutiu et al., 2016)
• Additionally, having an effective marketing strategy in place will allow an organization to ensure maximum utilization of its resources and thereby offer a message in terms of its sales to concerned market (Pogorelova et al., 2019).
• An advertisement budget can also be established ahead of time as well as create a technique that will find out the extent of a particular plan, that is the income made from a particular advertisement plan (Gregory et al., 2019).

Customer Influence & Marketing Strategy- E-Bay

Customer DNA is the only customer archive platform for the concerned organization that has been allowed by the Teradata’s Enterprise Data Warehouse, it is a centralized structure that accumulates all the data in relation to the customers of the E-Bay (Alexandra et al., 2018). This system paves way for the concerned organization to enable ultra-segmentation as well as targeting procedure that is created on the basis of the high, low as well as average set of data on the part of the concerned organization.

The Customer DNA system is emerging to be the determination of the concerned organization. In this context, the concerned organization is making use of its data-oriented marketing potentials and putting its fundamental attention in terms of making its e-mail marketing strategies highly personalized as well as significant in the direction of meeting the needs and requirements of its target customers (Burchman et al., 2015). For instance, the concerned organization created their daily deals, which they would send to some of their chosen customers depending on their search record on a daily basis. However, prior to the establishment of the Customer DNA system, such kinds of a daily offer were not significant or even customized as per the needs and requirements of the customers of the concerned organization (Pappas, 2016). Furthermore, the customers are also sent notification in terms of the hot offers provided by the organization and hence they are kept informed about the products they are searching as well as the availability of these products in the stock of the company.

The structure of the email is such that it informs the customers about the exclusive offers being provided by the company, the number of customers who already viewed the product and the number of products left in the stock of the company (Ramya et al., 2016). This system selected by E-Bay had proved to be highly beneficial for the concerned organization as compared to the customary marketing approaches which does not provide any kind of a time-span for their concerned customers.

Hence, the entire marketing strategy of the E-Bay organization is based on the influences of its customers. In this context, the concerned organization analysis the trending products of the organization through which they able to find the keywords that has been highly searched by the customers of the organization (Mihaela, 2015). Moreover, once it has been determined that a particular customer has high level of success in a specific segment, then he or she would be sent an email on that particular topic only. In the most initial phase of starting with E-Bay, the concerned customers are sent an email, motivating them to engage themselves in a higher level of buying and selling activities (Hassan, 2015). Furthermore, it has been determined that the sellers on the E-Bay platform are their most prominent engaged customers.

Internal Factors & Consumer’s Buying Decision

Here are the few internal factors that creates an impact on the buying decision of the consumers of the E-Bay:

1. Consumer Perception- The demography of the customers plays a vital role in finding out the attitude of the customers towards the products and services of the concerned organization E-Bay (Alcúdia et al., 2019). In this context it has been determined that the customers of the concerned organization are young as compared to the customers of the other organizations. Moreover, it has also been determined that even though the females tend to purchase less online, however, in the case of E-Bay the female customers are more as compared to that of the male customers. Furthermore, the average earning of the customers of the E-Bay is higher than those individuals who are the customers of some other organizations (Valaskova et al., 2018). It has been determined that the customers who has a higher level of income tends to have a higher level of access to computer as well as internet services and hence they are more inclined towards buying products and services from the E-Bay.

Additionally, the family size of the customers is another important condition that will be able to estimate that if they will purchase products and services from E-Bay or not. The customers who have big families will opt for cost-efficient strategies more than that of those consumers who have a small family (Chen et al., 2018). In this context, E-Bay provides sufficient prospects to their customers, wherein they can make huge savings on household products as well as on clothing among many others. Hence, it has been determined that the customers who comes from a big family tends to make higher number of purchases from the E-Bay.

2. Attitude- In this context, the customers of the E-Bay are most content with the kind of services offered to them by the concerned organization (Taufique et al., 2016). Hence, they take a higher number of decisions to buy commodities and services from the concerned organization.

Another relevant aspect determined in this context is impulsive buying nature of their customers, who in turn has been reported to auction high value for a particular commodity and then hesitate to pay the value for that particular product. Hence, the customer of E-Bay engages in buying a commodity they like in the most instant manner, without thinking over their decision as well as in a dynamic way (Ackermann et al., 2015).

Considering from this point of view, the E-Bay offers multiple prospects to its customers to participate in the game without the need to give any money or even the need to provide any product. In this way impulsive buying is not a matter of risk for the customers of the E-Bay, making the journey highly easy for their customers.

3. Motivation- In this context, it has been determined that the customers these days are more engaged towards purchasing those products and services that have been purchased or recommended by their friends. This means that these consumers want to coordinate with the norms and protocols of the group with which they want to connect (Hansen et al., 2018). Hence conformity motivation is known to be a concept that describe the extent to which the customers are complying with the rules and regulations of a particular group in terms of making their decision to purchase from that particular organization.

Considering from this point of view, the E-Bay follows the practice of providing ready varieties of commodities and services to their customers, hence the organization has more customers within whom the conformity motivation power is high as compared to that of the other organizations (Mantovani et al., 2017).

4. Learning- In this context, it has been determined that the customers having high level of computer knowledge should engage more in buying products and services from the E-Bay organization (Solomon et al., 2017)
5. Personality- In this context, it has been determined that the personality of the consumers of the E-Bay organization is very much impulsive as they don’t think much before making their decision to purchase (Frank et al., 2019). However, in order to best serve this purpose, the E-Bay had taken an initiative to provide a comprehensive description of the commodities they offering to their customers.

External Factors & Consumers Buying Decision

Here are some of the external factors that has the potential to create an influence on the buying decision of the customers of the E-Bay company:

1. Reference Groups- Considering from the point of view of marketing, a reference group is known to be a set of individuals that will perform the task of providing recommendations to people in terms of their decision to purchase a particular product or service from a particular organization. Moreover, in the context, of the E-Bay company it has been determined that the consumers rely too much on the reference groups to make their decision to purchase a product from the concerned organization (Nash, 2019). Hence, the customers tend to take their decisions on the basis of the recommendations or even feedbacks provided to them by their friends who have already purchased the same products from E-Bay.
2. Social Class- It is known to be the status or the position of a particular customer in terms of the society to which he or she belongs. The social status of the consumers are determined by means of analyzing their level of education, earning as well as their status of employment (Stankevich, 2017). Moreover, even the cultural perspective, residential area as well as their perspective towards the world also determines their status in their society.

Moreover, in the context of the E-Bay it has been determined that those consumers who has a high range of income tends to make more purchases from the concerned organization. Furthermore, the reason behind this is that people having a high range of income have more access to computer as well as internet services, paving way for them to purchase more products from the concerned organization.

Additionally, it can also be said that the E-Bay consumers also makes their purchase related decisions on the basis of the recommendations provided by the opinion leaders prevailing in the society, this may even include the friends as well as the family of the consumers themselves (Rezaei, 2015). Considering from this point of view an opinion leader is a person who practices the habit of creating an impact on the decisions of others through simply speaking about the product and this is only because the concerned consumers expects recommendations from these opinion leaders.

Further, analyzing from the point of view of marketing it has been determined that the opinion leaders are those individuals who has already used the products for which they are being asked for a recommendation. Adding more to it, as it has been determined in the previous parts that the consumers of the E-Bay company are mostly young, hence it is most likely that they are going to seek a higher number of opinions from the opinion leaders prevailing in their society. So, it is not always necessary that the recommendation provided by an opinion leader would only be favorable for the company (Rezaei, 2015) , it might also be negative and this can critically create an impact on the buying decisions made by the consumers of that particular organization.

3. Culture- It has the potential to create an impact on the behavior of the customers in terms of the norms and principles that has been created by the society in which the concerned customers are living. Considering from the marketing point of view it can be said that as the culture develops, it is also likely to connect the significance of those products and services with the new beliefs that has been established by the society. Moreover, it might also happen that there might be certain values connected with the product that is no longer valid in the society, hence in that situation that particular product can also be required to be changed as a whole (Nash, 2019).

Furthermore, it has also been determined that the concept of sub-culture will allow share different kinds of cultural beliefs and ideologies from one procreation of people to another procreation of people. Hence, in this context, it has been determined that the youths are biggest customers of the E-Bay company, so it all depends upon the beliefs and ideologies of these young people that will create an impact on their decision to purchase that is by means of obtaining opinions through their friends.

4. Marketing Factors- Considering from this point of view it can be said that the consumers acquire a certain set of ideologies as well as behaviors in terms of a particular range of commodities and services. These ideologies and attitudes of the customers assists them in taking their decision to buy a particular product and service, hence, marketing people of an organization takes huge interest in the same. Thus, in this context, the marketing people of an organization can implement marketing programs that change the attitude of the consumers in terms of the products and services of that particular organization (Nash, 2019) .

In this context, E-Bay practices the process of sending their best offers to their selective group of customers, who has found to be searching certain product keywords on the website of the company and keep them updated about the offers that is meeting the needs and requirements of these customers.

Consumer’s Decision-Making Process- E-Bay

There are two ways in which the consumers of E-Bay take their decision to purchase a product or a serve from the concerned organization. The first option is where the customers can pay a specific cost and purchase the product or service in which they are interested, while in the second option the customers can negotiate for a particular product and attempt to win the same at the lowest cost offered in terms of bidding procedure (Karimi et al., 2015). There is also an option wherein the customers propose a cost for a particular product in which they would like to buy that particular product or service.

Significance of Digital Marketing

• The digital marketing provides enough scope to an organization to contend with other rival companies with an attempt to enhance their overall sales.
• Digital market in the contemporary world will enable an organization to reach the undetermined group of customers by means of advertising their product and services virtually (Behera et al., 2020).
• Business in the contemporary world needs the trust and integrity of their customers in terms of an online platform. Hence, digital marketing assists an organization will help an organization to gain greater level of reliability for their brand (Behera et al., 2020) .

Influence of Digital Marketing on Consumer Behavior

With the help of digital technology the customers can have an access to an advanced level of knowledge on the products and services offered by an organization, which in this case is the E-Bay, wherein the customers take their buying decisions on the basis of recommendations as well as the product description offered by the organization itself on their concerned websites. In this context, the concerned organization does not have the soul authority in terms of the products and services of the organization, however, their decision can be taken on the basis of product recommendation or description obtained from other online sources as well (Behera et al., 2020). Moreover, it is due to the multi-medium preference of the customers that it is the customers who makes the choice of the medium of communication and it is not the organization who makes such a decision.

Conclusion on Segmenting Consumer Decision-Making Styles

Through this report it can be concluded that E-Bay is one of the biggest online platforms that has taken an initiative to frame their marketing strategies on the basis of the needs and requirements of the target audience. Moreover, in order to drive the attention of their target customers the concerned organization has engaged themselves in sending their best deals to the customers through e-mail by means of determining the area of interests of their target customers. Furthermore, it has also been determined that E-Bay customers are mostly young and they belong to the higher income group, because of having greater access to computer as well as the internet services. Additionally, the customers having big families prefers to make their purchase from E-Bay as they are offered great deal on household products and services. It has also been found that the customers can either choose to buy products at a fixed rate or participate in the auction to get the best deal.

References for Segmenting Consumer Decision-Making Styles

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