Category: Consumer Behavior

Abstract

This research is all about to study the international customers’ loyalty behaviour towards Indian textile industry. When it comes to loyalty a customer becomes a frequent buyer. An international customer who can buy the textile products in India frequently and stand loyal to a brand matters more for a company to enter an international market. Their preferences and needs could be brought out in this research and the steps that a company can adopt to fight the competition in textile industry. In today scenario, every company wants to remain in the market and fight the competition. So, every company should know what are the needs and wants of the customers’ in the international market. It is very important industry or brand to know the product preferences by the customer on which factor and basis. This research is carried by using primary data in the form of a questionnaire.

INTRODUCTION

The need to know the loyalty of a customer in an international market has a dozen of factors contributing to the success or failure of a business, customer satisfaction is one of them. It’s important to track the factors influencing and work on improving it in order to make the customers more loyal and eventually turn them into brand ambassadors.

When it comes to buying behaviour, it differs from person to person and their preferences differ accordingly. A company must be very clean to know the needs of a customer. International customers who buy the products from Indian textile industry are taken as samples.

LITERATURE REVIEW

When it comes to customer loyalty towards textile industry it could be validated on two attributes including customer satisfaction and the factors influencing to buy the textile products from India. A study by Jiana Daikh (2015) states the relationship between customer satisfaction and customers loyalty that influences how the customers expect from the market. Their needs and wants are analysed. Pearl Fafa Bansah and Michael Dabi (2015) studied the effect of branding on customers buying behaviour among textile. The aspects of brand equity, notably brand awareness, brand loyalty and brand image play a vital role.

Zhuoling Shi and Yanqi Yu (2013) says understanding the customer satisfaction and having a plan for how to improve the customer satisfaction is key aspect for enterprise to think about. Hossein Bodaghi Khajeh and Reza Rostamzadesh (2018) says the impact of customer satisfaction, customer experience and customer loyalty on brand power.

Jorge Arenas Gaitan (2019) to understand the consumer behaviour from the marketing perspective a brand must be able to build a strong network with the company. Jimmy Rodriguez (2019) Takes a deeper dive into the concept of satisfaction versus loyalty, including different ways to measure both. The effectiveness of an Indian textile industry can happen only when a company can understand the international customers towards their needs and wants.

OBJECTIVES

• To study on International customers’ loyalty behaviour.
• To find the level of satisfaction in Indian textile industry.
• To know the factors affecting the International customers towards buying behaviour.

HYPOTHESIS

1. There is relationship between the product attributes and the level of satisfaction by customers.
2. There is relationship between the factors that influence a customer to buy Indian textile products.
3. There is relationship between price and quality of an Indian textile product.
4. There is relationship between the satisfaction level and problem faced by customers using Indian products.
5. There exists brand loyalty in customers to buy more Indian textile products in future.

METHODOLOGY

The research was a primary research with the sample size of 150 customers from various countries. These customers are the ones to buy the textile products from the Indian textile industry. A structured questionnaire was used for this study.

Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the responses.

DISCUSSION

The primary data was collected and the results of the questionnaire were statistically analysed. The research showed that the respondents were from different countries. The tool used to analyse the data was frequency analysis. The total sample size was 150 international customers and the respondents is of 114. This analysis shows how the international customers stay loyal to the Indian textile industry. The brand loyalty could be found only when the level of customer satisfaction is measured. It also includes the years of association with an Indian textile company oh how the international customer is benefited.

The age of most of the respondents were within the age of 21 to 40 years. The average 79 percent of the respondents were in the age group of 21 to 35 years. The respondents of which 68 customers were male and 46 were female. In the customers surveyed the 71% of the customers were graduated and lead their profession as a Manager or own business. The Indian textile industry were found to be run with a greater number of loyal customers having more than 1year or above 5 years of association with a brand in India. There is a total of 114 respondents from various country’s using the Indian textile products.

Customer Satisfaction

Through this the loyalty of a customer could be defined. When it comes to design 84% of the international customers are highly satisfied with the design produced by the Indian textile industry. 66% of the international customers are satisfied with the variety produced by the Indian textile industry. 70% of the international customers are highly satisfied with the quality produced by the Indian textile industry. 53% of the international customers are satisfied with the price range offered by the Indian textile industry. 63% of the international customers are highly satisfied with the comfort of material produced by the Indian textile industry. 50% of the international customers are satisfied with the durability of material produced by the Indian textile industry. 45% of the international customers are satisfied with the product packaging by the Indian textile industry.44% of the international customers are satisfied with the availability of material by the Indian textile industry. Loyalty starts only when a company could satisfy a customer.

Factors Influencing Buying behaviour

Brand loyalty could also depend on the factor that influences the International customer to but the product from the Indian textile industry. Most of the customers are influenced by quality almost 87% of the customers are highly influenced by the quality produced by Indian textile industry. 50% of the customers are highly influenced by the colour produced by Indian textile industry. 46% of the customers are influenced by the brand image gained by an Indian textile industry. 64% of the customers are highly influenced by the design produced by Indian textile industry. 50% of the customers are influenced by on time delivery by Indian textile industry. 43% of the customers are influenced by the discounts offered by Indian textile industry. 43% of the customers are influenced by the advertisements done by Indian textile industry. 42% of the customers are highly influenced by their status to buy a product from an Indian textile industry. 48% of the customers are highly influenced by their family to buy an Indian textile product. 50% of the customers are influenced by relatives & peer to buy the product produced by Indian textile industry.

Price for best quality

The expectation of an international customer to compromise price for quality. Majority of 97 respondents are ready to pay higher price for quality. The Indian textile sectors on Handloom and Power loom are made more precise with quality. International customers are ready to pay more if the quality of the product is very satisfactory. Most of the companies focus more on the quality, variety and durability of a product. The expectation of an Indian customer is different from an international customer. Their needs and wants are to be found and analysed so that a company can stand in a long run in an international market.

Problem faced using Indian Textile products

107 respondents haven’t faced any problem buying the Indian textile products. This is a clear sign to know the Indian textile industry is performing well in the international market. This will boost the loyalty level of customers in the international level towards the Indian textile industry. Reason is if an Indian textile industry can produce a product that can satisfy the international market. The international customers loyalty towards Indian textile industry can mark up.

Future purchases in India

The respondents responses on how the international customers future purchases will be from the textile industries in India. Majority of the respondents are likely to buy the Indian textile products always which is around 39. 38 respondents are likely to buy the Indian textile products often. 22 respondents are likely to buy the Indian textile products Sometimes. To increase the count the Indian textile industry should improve the strategy followed in the international market to be more effective. Thus gaining to more international customers and to give a full percentage of international customer satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

The competition in every textile industry is getting fiercer. Even minor differences and preferences between shoppers are becoming important for firms to improve their efforts to get target their consumers. According to the literatures there are many factors influencing the buying behaviour of consumers, satisfaction. The brand loyalty of a customer entirely depends if the Indian textile industry continues to meets the international customers’ needs and wants. This shows that it requires a lot of scope for further research in the same direction related to the factors affecting customers buying behaviour. The brand loyalty of a customer could be measured on a continuous scale. This helps the Indian textile industry to know their market place and act according to sustain in a long run in the international market.

References

1. Daikh, Jiana, ‘A Research Proposal: The Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Consumer Loyalty’ (2015). MBA Student Scholarship. 42. https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/mba_student/4
2. Effect of Branding on Consumer BuGhana Fabric Users in the Ho Municipality of Ghana
3. Pearl Fafa Bansha, The effect on consumer buying behaviour among textile Ghana fabric users, Eurpoean journal of Business & Management, ISSN 2222-1905(paper), ISSN 2222-2839(Online), Vol.7,No.26,2015.
4. Zhuoling Shi and Yanqi Yu, Customer satisfaction in the fashion industry: case study of HM case company, Corpus ID: 167144636, Business, Published 2013.
5. Jorge Arenas Gaitan, Complexity of understanfing customer behaviour from marketing perspective, Volume 2019, Article ID- 2837938, https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/2837938
6. Jimmy Rodriguez, Customer satisfaction vs customer loyalty, dec, 2019. – Blog.hubspot.com
7. Han, Y. K., Morgan, G. A., Kotsiopulo, A., & Kang-Park, J. (1991). Impulse buying behavior of apparel purchasers. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 9(3),http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0887302X9100900303
8. Yang, D.J., Huang, K.C., & Feng, X. (2011). A study of the factors that affect the impulsive cosmetics buying of female consumers in Kaohsiung. Inter. J. of Business and Social Science, 2(24), 275-282.
9. Pentecost, R., & Andrews, L. (2010). Fashion retailing and the bottom line: The effects of generational cohorts, gender, fashion fanship, attitudes and impulse buying on fashion expenditure. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 17(1), 43-52.
10. PWC, 2014. Evolution of e-commerce in India Creating the bricks behind the clicks, at:http://www.pwc.in/assets/pdfs/publications/2014/evolution-of-e-commerce-in-india.pdf
11. Han, Y. K., Morgan, G. A., Kotsiopulo, A., & Kang-Park, J. (1991).
12. Impulse buying behavior of apparel purchasers. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 9(3), 15-21.
13. Future Trends in textile and apparel industry: http://www.businessstandard.com/article/management/kit-future-trends- in-textile-and-apparel-industry
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Bhutan is not very popular in business world but still there is process of purchase taking place. The purchases are not done so much in detailed by Bhutanese consumers according to my observation. This model is a psychological and a sociological model as it shows about the consumer need and the purchase behavior influence by the family, friend and other environment. So, the above model developed shows and explains how Bhutanese consumers purchase products along with the steps they involve in for making the decision of purchasing final products. Before decision making process by the consumers, marketers should study about the consumer behavior of what are consumer prefer, how they choose and under what criteria do they make a decision to purchase the product. There can be consumer with personality like social character, sensation seeking, exploratory purchaser and need for uniqueness consumers. So all this personality types will be stimulated to purchase the product in different ways. Consumer materialism is also type of consumer behavior trait which means importance a consumer places on the acquisition and possession of material objects.

Inputs

Inputs is a source of information about a particular product which stimuli’s consumer with the attributes and features of a particular product. In the above model it is shown that Bhutanese consumers are stimulated and triggered mostly by price of the goods, quality of the goods and availability of goods in the market in terms of significance and in terms of social, they are influenced by family members, friends while talking about the product and society where they live. The flow of information from advertisement and social media also influences them to make a purchase. The feedback information also influences the consumer to purchase a product.

Information process

When the consumer is being stimulated to purchase, they starts the information process under which there is certain steps of information processed. Firstly, the information will exposed to the consumer about the product and then next the information will be received by consumer but here consumer will give attention to the information he/she needed and will not give attention to other information. The consumer will look into different brands of those particular products and then will store all this information in their short term memory. This information process is being used by Bhutanese consumers in three levels of decision making that is extensive problem solving, limited problem solving and routinized problem solving.

In extensive problem solving consumer have no idea of any brands of that product or does not have any information about that product at all. For example, mother wants to buy shoes but she is not aware of any brand nor have any idea about the shoes. So in cases like this information process is very important. In limited problem solving, consumer has little knowledge about the product or brands but still search general information for better purchasing decision. For example, Tshering Dema wants to buy a new phone but she has limited information about the different brands of phone in the market. So in this case she will need to search for little more information but not too extensively.

Routinized problem solving is situation where consumer has information about brands and features of product for purchasing. The consumers have purchased before or have already had knowledge about the product. kinley purchasing football boots could be an example as in this case just a little information is required to be processed as Kinley knows base on what criteria should he purchased. Therefore, Bhutanese consumers undergo all the process of information in for all the levels of decision making as for better and unregretful purchase.

Decision process

After the information is being processed in the mind of consumers, the decision making process begin with following steps:

• Need recognition: The Bhutanese consumer is stimulated to buy because of a need or a motive within a consumers mind. The action to purchase will be stimulated by internal stimulus like hunger or by external stimulus like pretty shoes color in the shop. There are two types of state of need recognition that is desired state where other goods seems better than current one and actual state which means product is finishing its value or there is problem. Most Bhutanese consumers they recognize their needs in actual state.
• Pre purchase search: After the recognition of need, the consumer starts to search information about the product. The information is search on the product category of that product need to be purchased and different varieties and brands available. The information search will depend on the category available, times of purchases done and personality of the consumer. But Bhutanese consumer usually does not take brand in consideration as much like other countries consumers as they just look into quality and price the most with different categories. That’s why brand is not included in the model above. There are three types of search activity but Bhutanese consumers go for specific search for a specific product which will solve the problem and they purchase immediately.
• Evaluation of alternatives: under evaluation of alternatives there are different alternatives on certain criteria of a product like evoked set of generation of choice alternative which means particular brand a consumer want to purchase but it is not mentioned in the model as Bhutanese consumer most often go with the criteria like economic, social and behavioral. These criteria’s includes price, quality, personality, need and group influences which are being taken to evaluate the product by the Bhutanese consumers.

After the product is being evaluated, different decision rules are applied like compensatory rule which means positive attributes compensate the negative attributes. The second decision rule is non-compensatory rule where negative attributes are not compensated by positive attributes. This non compensatory rule have three rules under it that is conjunctive decision where if the cutoff point set is not fulfilled by one attribute then the category gets eliminated. The second rule is disjunctive whereby cutoff point achieved by one attributes also then it is selected. The last one is lexicographic decision rule whereby the attributes are ranked/ rearrange based on choice. Then the consumer compares various alternatives by taking particular attributes which is important and the highest scored category is selected at the end. Bhutanese consumer will not go into this process but some may follow. Bhutanese consumers purchases directly after evaluation or apply the compensatory rules only.

Purchase behavior

Purchase behavior of consumer in Bhutan can be of trial purchase and long term commitment purchase out of three types including repeat purchase. Trial purchase means consumer is buying the product for first time and purchases less quantity and Bhutanese people also buy the product which they have never bought before in less quantity as they think that product might be good or bad. So to experience, they purchase in less quantity. Long term commitment purchase means products like refrigerator are purchased to use for longer duration with long term commitment directly without a trial. The repeat purchase means consumer purchases same brand always; it is similar to brand loyalty. There are Bhutanese consumers who repeatedly purchase the same branded products always. This purchase behavior are done base on the motives of that products need, knowledge about the product and consumer resources which means income or budget that consumer have.

Post purchase evaluation

Post purchase Cognitive dissonance is like the feeling of tension and anxiety after the experiences of that product. This is the stage one in post purchase which is not experienced by most of the Bhutanese consumers or it is not included in the model but the second stage that is product usage and reaction can be applied to the Bhutanese consumer as after the purchase of the product and experience, there can be three reaction that are the expectation of consumer meets and consumer is satisfied, the expectation of consumer is exceeding and consumer is happy and satisfied and the expectation of consumer fails and consumer is angry , sad and unsatisfied. This is what happens with Bhutanese when they are in the stage of post purchase.

But if the consumer expectation fails or falls short then Bhutanese consumers go back to purchase behavior and again do a trial on different brand of similar product as show in the model with a blue arrow going up towards the purchase behavior. It’s said that Bhutanese consumer are lazy compared to other consumers so they will not go back till the information process and restart the search on product again from the beginning. The view of this Bhutanese consumer decision pattern could be economic view as Bhutanese consumer does not will to do a deep extensive search of information about the product. They are satisfied with satisfactory decision and they take decision keeping in mind the cost and benefit of the product.

So lastly, this model shows an input that influences Bhutanese consumers to purchase followed by the process of information applying to all the levels of decision making process. The decision making process is done with specific search activity. After that it’s followed by the output where by Bhutanese consumer experiences three different outcomes or result of decision after experiences. If the Bhutanese consumer is not satisfied they go back to purchase behavior and repeat the purchased rather than following whole process again. Therefore, the model shows how Bhutanese consumers make a purchase decision.

Reference

1. CONSUMER DECISION MAKING-PROCESS,MODELS,LEVELS,DECISION RULES. (2016). Retrieved from bbamantra: https://bbamantra.com/consumer-decision-making-process-models/
2. Richins, M. L. (n.d.). Consumer Materialism. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230294036_Consumer_Materialism
3. Vijayrangan, H. (n.d.). Personality and consumer behavior. Retrieved from Slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/hshvjy/personality-and-consumer-behavior-15719593
4. Wangpo, K. (n.d.). MKT202/SS-2020 Consumer Behaviour. Retrieved from Virtual Learning Environment: http://vle.gcbs.edu.bt/login/index.php

Executive Summary

The report analyzed one of the consumer trends – ‘I want it now’, discussing about the trend emergence in Australian market and the impact on consumer behaviour. Then, aiming at satisfying Australians’ hedonic needs and diminishing consumption resistance, an app – EfficAgency was developed to deliver fast party arrangement for those who were busy at work while they demanded full-service parties with no need to spend time on negotiating with agencies. Finally, brand archetype, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and theory of planned behaviour were applied to analyze the impact that the app expected to have on the target consumers.

Overview

The trend “I WANT IT NOW” indicates the consumers are seeking a more efficient way in purchasing. Similarly, the trend also named “zero friction consumption”. In a word, they have less patience to wait for the parcel delivering, searching the product information and completing complex payment transaction. In fact, the retailers in Pacific-Asia area are losing US$325 billion due to not reducing the friction based on BCG report (Facebook IQ & BCG, pg. 4).

According to 2019 recent global trend research, consumers are increasingly turn to use application to get their life organized and save more time (Montgomery 2019). It indicates that consumer are not only switching their purchasing channel from in-store to online shopping, but also a transition from laptop to smart phone. Compare to use website browsing, smart phone is more portable and convenient for shopping anywhere and anytime. Furthermore, 41% consumers feel disappointed when they found product online but not available at stores (Facebook IQ & BCG, pg.11). Hence, consumers just place order online and get it delivered.

The zero friction shopping experience is also include post-purchase behavior. A positive or negative experience is worth sharing online and consumers are already got used to make a comment after each shopping. In addition, first-time consumers are also reviewing the comments online before making a purchase decision. Consumers would like to get an immediate response about their complaint and lack of seamless customer service results in reducing loyalty for customers. According to research, 66% has switched to competitor’s brand due to the failure of companies’ interaction (Facebook IQ & BCG, pg.16).

All in all, “I Want It Now” contains the efficient order products, simple payment method and quick customer service.

Unmet Needs & Opportunities to Fill the Gap

It is obvious that most of the super apps, which offered integrated functions and services, however, focus mainly on everyday needs, such as payment, communication, transportation and accommodation. Moreover, many services should still be shifted to third-party websites to complete customizing, booking and payment. Because these apps are adopting a partnership model with all other service providers gathered in one application (Women in Product Conference, 2018).

As for the offline physical store, Amazon Go could be a representative example of this trend. Using free checkout technology, Amazon Go has met the demand of the consumers preferring no waiting time at checkout when shop for homewares, food and other essentials of life. Hence, meeting the consumers’ needs by lining with the trend I Want it Now! for their utilitarian needs.

According to the Hofstede 6 cultural dimensions of Australia, Australians scored at 71 for indulgence which is well above the world average level (Hofstede Insights, 2019). This score indicates that Australian residents will not be hesitated to consume when they have desires of entertainment or leisure. To maintain and increase the level of indulgence, companies need to successfully capture the consumer’s behaviour and deliver their needs because it will thrive and escalate in the near future.

From a marketing perspective, there could be opportunities for evoking Australians’ hedonic needs to be fulfilled by providing convenience and speed of service delivery. According to Walmsley (2003), entertainment and leisure have been deeply embedded in the Australian lifestyle, which is why barbecue parties have become a national identity. As a result, the concept of facing the Australian market concerns about their ‘barbecue’ social lifestyle and diminishing the consumption resistance.

Current trend change consumer behaviour

“I Want It Now” is highly emphasis on efficiency-driven and time-saving. Nowadays, people are willing to spend more to save time especially the age group of 30-44 (Angus & Westbrook, 2017). Generation X gets the highest rate in all usage distribution (Hwong, 2018). Meanwhile, buying time increase happiness is also defined by recent research by Whillans et al. (2017). The hedonic need theory indicates that people are motivated to purchase more by positive emotion and remarkable experience. Reflecting the experiential hierarchy learning model, people are in a rush and have less patience waiting for the service or product to experience. They tend to spend more on convenience and efficiency; therefore, they learn to use one-step service to maximize ultimate convenience to avoid time costing.

Along with the continuous development of the trend, customers prefer using more of the mobile and mobile apps than via desktop to do their shopping. Based on the statistics from Clement (2019), approximately 40% of the total e-commerce transactions were taken on mobile in 2017. eMarketer (2019) predicts global e-commerce sales to hit $4.058 trillion by 2020, and there will be over 50% of traffic contributed by mobile transactions. It is obvious that desktop online shopping is now not sufficient to satisfy customers’ growing needs on the efficiency-driven lifestyle as well as the frictionless experience. Moreover, for the mobile website, some users still feel it is not convenient and feasible. Moth (2013) mentioned a survey from Compuware, 85% of consumers strongly preferring shopping in apps rather than mobile websites because the in-app shopping is more convenient by 55%; faster by 48% and easy to browse by 40% than the mobile website. This has lead to a significant shift from mobile websites to mobile apps by the consumer on e-commerce, giving rise to I Want it Now! trend as the consumers’ behaviour.

Mobile applications and media among the consumers have influenced their attitudes and behaviour during the shopping cycle (Shankar and Balasubramanian 2009, cited in Shankar et al., 2011). In 2008, Kraft launched an assistant application in the Apple App store where consumers can download over 7,000 different recipes and search ingredients promotion activities in their favourite stores (Shankar et al., 2011). This saves users time to collect recipes themselves, guarantees the use of recipes, and provides the best source of ingredients.

Insights identification

The research conducted by market research firm The Integer Group shows that many consumers choose to save time instead of money. Nearly one-third of shoppers described themselves as “more willing to spend more time to save time”. This is an increase from about one-fifth of last month. In addition, a survey of 1,200 adults showed that about 30% of consumers tend to pay for services immediately by credit, rather than waiting for future purchases. The figure has grown by about 10%, compared to last month. Most shoppers surveyed want service providers to give consumers more time to do other things (Convenience Store News, 2009).

Mobile applications and information services achieved rapid growth in 2011. Emerging services completed through mobile servers have been gradually put on the market. The result of customers transitioning from 2G to faster 3G, 4G networks, is the availability of mobile display technology that has spawned new and emerging services such as mobile video and mobile purchasing. Operators have introduced data usage and billing models to achieve a win-win situation between consumers and service providers (Beverly, 2011).

The need of mobile applications arises because consumers are willing to reduce waiting time of purchase, especially middle-aged consumers pursue the efficiency-driven lifestyle (Euromonitor International, 2019). About 50% of consumers in this segment consider time value preferable to monetary value, expecting to spend money on products and services to save time (Euromonitor International’s Lifestyles Survey, 2017, cited in Euromonitor International, 2019). This motivation pulls consumers to look for apps that could provide quick services, especially an app with multiple functions. Whether an application is able to save time is a necessary condition for building loyalty in their perception.

The Business Idea

For the trend: I Want It Now!, if someone may desire to hold a dinner party tonight for a group of people while there is not enough time and energy to either prepared everything or to make the booking from an agency, an app called EfficAgency can offer a quick party and activities arrangement, fulfilling customers’ needs by just moving their fingers and selecting the requirements of the event they desire is all that they ‘Want It Now’.

Our Brand EfficAgency specifically provides the quickest event arrangement to reduce the redundancy of the event planning and one-step express service from planning to implementation in the form of a mobile application. Customers can skip searching procedures including the party renting, decorating, food preparing and cleaning by using the app, they can have more time focusing on family fun or enjoy the wonderful moment with friends, colleagues and family.

Segmentation & Target Audience

The multivariate segmentation will mostly be based on psychological and behavioural characteristics, and also give consideration that consumers seek for. The first identified group is business commuters. They stand for the Gen X who aged between 34-55. They have intensive work every day, therefore, when they have the desire to hold private parties and business receptions, they hardly have enough time to plan and prepare. Geographically they commonly live in urban city areas. They earn at least $45,000 income annually. Also, the value they emphasize is high quality food and service because they could show their social status when served by us.

The second potential group is social butterflies mostly referring to Gen Y aged between 23-33. They are quite sociable and have built strong network with people from different backgrounds. They are club/bar lovers; however, these places could not meet their needs they require thematic and private activities in one day. Social butterflies could party with the people they just meet, then it will be very time-consuming for them to look for suitable party places in a short time. Compared to business commuters, they have lower annual wage at approximately $35,000 while they seek for entertainment and interactivity as the key values. According to a lifestyle survey, people ageing 30 to 50 years cherish more on-time premium and willing to spend to save their time from their busy lifestyle (Angus & Westbrook, 2017, p. 58). Combing with the segmentation, the business commuters are more worthwhile to be the target audience.

Positioning

EfficAgency provides instant services to the customers on arranging the upcoming events, providing them with the best option for timesaving, convenient, fast delivered, and easy to use the mobile application. A brand mantra for EfficAgency could be defined as the instant group pleasure.

Differentiation

EfficAgency differentiates itself by providing an effective, stress-free and anytime arrangement. The competitors in Australian market, are service agency stores with scope of service limited to large-scale and formal events or conferences. Also, these agencies only allows for phone bookings and in-store communication, bringing delay and inconvenience. Meanwhile, EfficAgency focuses on arranging small to medium events and private parties. Therefore, efficiency and ease of usage are the distinctive attributes that make the app unique and meet the consumers’ instant demands. The comprehensive activity plans and service become the superior benefits for consumers. Last but not lease, the price is affordable for most Australians.

7 P’s

Product

EfficAgency is our user-friendly mobile application, providing event arrangements based on consumers’ personal preferences. With just one app Using installed, customers can save time on planning,

Price

The price will be varied for each order. EfficAgency will maintain long-term operating with renting, restaurant and cleaning companies, so the customers will pay the comparatively low price for entire costs. Besides, the monetary strategy is charging 15% of the total costs for arrangement service and another 15% surcharging for express delivery.

Place

We will realize virtual and realistic interaction through a mobile application platform with service information on it. The staff will help book and complete the order at the customers’ required venues such as their courtyards, parks, and activity centres.

Promotion

We will adopt integrated marketing communications strategy. Photos with saturated colours that express a pleasant experience of participants will be posted to social media with the goal of increasing awareness of the app. This sensory marketing approach could draw consumers’ attention. In addition, some key opinion leaders will be our spokespersons on social media and share their recreational and hedonic experience with consumers, which deepens the impression and likability. Besides, some coupons would be issued on streets for trial purchases and to current users for increasing repeat rate after purchases.

People

Process

Physical Evidence

A user-friendly layout mobile application with a platform is compatible with IOS and Android. The company will provide equipment, and friendly staff will organise it. No warehouse needed.

Impacts on consumer behaviour

In the long-term development perspective, the brand should develop a competence-based brand personality as the service is trustworthy to be consumed repeatedly and the delivery-arrangement-cleaning process is efficient. The brand archetype could be established as a magician. No matter how challenging the arrangement is, our intimate service will always put your request in priority and be considerate about every single detail, so the activities can be well-organised definitely. This brand image would help to create more positive associations for consumers and further increase the number of loyal users in the service market.

This business idea will also impact consumer behaviour based on Maslow’s hierarchy theory. Firstly, beyond physical settings and food, the event service can meet the affiliation need by facilitating relationships between customer and their friend. Ego needs is satisfied since the customers have power to be a host and well-served. During this process, they feel being respected and show their status. Most importantly, enriching their experiences through bringing the feelings of excitement, fantasies and leisure also satisfies the hedonic need.

The app is expected to develop an observational learning process to their potential customers, especially those guests who attend the parties. They observe that finding EfficAgency to hold and organize parties is actually extremely convenient and time-saving. They may ask the host for the company’s information after experiencing the great service, they will remember the benefits of making deal thought the event arrange app and finally imitate this action on ordering when he or she is needed. Moreover, remarkable party experience can increase the customers’ brand loyalty and further contributes to brand equity. Word-of-mouth could also possibly to be emerged and accelerate the decision of the potential customers to have their first order. At least, it can become one of the brands in their associated network, an evoked set, when they want to arrange an event.

Importantly, the company aims to maximise their long-term sustainable social, environmental and financial growth, therefore it will follow the triple-bottom-line and weight people, planet and profit equally. It promotes green marketing and to take their corporate social responsibility when doing their business. For instance, the company will reject using any disposable dishware in all the events，which will influence the consumers when they make their purchasing decision in the future, and companies can gain goodwill and sales from the consumers with consciousness of environmental protection.

According to Olive (1981b, p. 33), the customer expectations is as an assessment standard to evaluate what will be happening in the imminent transaction. It is clear that customer expectation is their feeling of expectancy about a service or product, which is one of the most important things that companies should concern. Specifically, before having massage experience, expectation is created by connecting customers’ pre-experiences and knowledge with their expectation in their mind. Besides, it is necessary to get customers’ first impressions before their experiences to get their satisfaction. The competition of spa tourism is more and more increasing because of the rise of spas (Erfurt-Cooper & Cooper, 2009; Mintel, 2011). That is the reason why spa managers plan for the best strategies to have loyal customers as well as new customers. Therefore, to achieve customers’ requires, pre-consumption experience and expectations should be paid attention to so that companies can evaluate the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of their customers.

To get individual experience in spa tourism, our team had experience in Varda spa located in Bondi Road, Bondi, New South Wealth. Our team has five members and we all experienced in Varda spa as well as had different expectations before going to Varda, such as design, relaxing atmosphere, modern facilities, professional massage skills, customer service, unique massage therapy, etc. As Lin (2013) mentions, spa is one of the best destinations for needs of health tourism, aiming to reach the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and wellbeing of customers. We also wished to experience unique massage therapy, which could help us feel relaxing, as well as refreshing. Besides, before doing massage, we also had pre-consumption experiences, which are our first impressions about Varda spa, including searching information, reviews on social networks, booking, communicating with the receptionist, using tea, and relaxing before the massage process. In general, most of the things are good except for the receptionist’s unfriendly attitude, making customers feel unwelcome and undervalued. In addition, lacking marketing channels to popular their spa reputation, and there was not much information and advertising for their program and massage packages when we arrived in the spa.(Do u think we should mention it?) Overall, our team still satisfied with our experience at the spa, but it did not exceed our expectations.

The competition or low prices for product service is no longer the most important in the hospitality industry to achieve success (Ryu et al., 2012). Nowadays, Ali and Amin (2014) indicated that customers have been looking for a relaxing experience and high expectations instead of just sacrifice atmosphere or poor services. Therefore, to satisfy the needs of customers, an outstanding service quality throughout an attractive physical environment, communication with staff need to be built. According to Lee and Jeong (2012), overall layout, design, decoration, and aesthetics are elements to decide the physical environment of a company. Take Varda spa as an example; we were all impressed with the beautifully-decorated design there. With the theme of elegance dwell, they use white as a main theme, conveying minimalist aesthetic and modern quality, which is highly suitable for the physical spa environment. We all felt pleasant and attracted to the spa’s decoration, which exceeded our expectations. Besides, in the hospitality term, emotion characteristics are considered as an essential element to achieve superior customer experience (Lin & Liang, 2011). Customer emotions could be divided into two types: positive (pleased, relaxed) and negative (nervous, annoyed) feelings. At Varda spa, before doing massage, we had a fantastic time to enjoy herbal foot bath and drink tea for relaxing, it is an excellent experience to get customers’ satisfaction. Besides, human interactions element is also one of the most important thing impacted on customer experience.

The way the receptionist communicated with our team made us feel unsatisfied and undervalued. In contrast, massage staff were very caring and informative. They provided us with advice on how to control and improve soft tissue conditions. They were cautious with the conditions such as neck and back pain, tendonitis, or postural strains that we would like to focus on. They were also professional in their massage skills, which made us feel really relax and comfortable.

Reference list

1. Ali, F., & Amin, M. (2014). The influence of physical environment on emotions, customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions in Chinese resort hotel industry. Journal for Global Business Advancement, 7(3), 249-266.Erfurt-Cooper, P., & Cooper, M. (2009). Health and wellness tourism: Spas and hot springs. Channel View Publications.
2. Lee, S. and Jeong, M. (2012) ‘Effects of e-servicescape on consumers’ flow experiences’, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp.47–59.
3. Lin, J. and Liang, H. (2011) ‘The influence of service environments on customer emotion and service outcomes’, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp.350–372.
4. Oliver, Richard L. 1980a. ‘A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions.’ Journal of Marketing Research 17 (November): 460-469.
5. Minteel. (2011). Spa tourism. Retrieved from http://academic.mintel.com/
6. Lin, C.-H. (2013). Determinants of revisit intention to a hot springs destination: Evidence from Journal of Tourism Research, 52(3), 325-339.

Introduction

Consumer behavior is the study of how individual customers, groups or organizations select, buy, use, and dispose ideas, goods, and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It refers to the actions of the consumers in the marketplace and the underlying motives for those actions. (Consumer Behaviour 2014) The study of consumer Behaviour helps everybody as all are consumers. It is essential for marketers to understand consumers to survive and succeed in this competitive marketing environment.

Consumers make price based decisions every day. They consistently observe and compare prices and make buying decisions based on spot prices. They take decisions based on the knowledge they obtain by observing the prices in different stores and advertisements. Some buy products regardless of the quality and the price it is sold. One study showed that only 47% to 55% of consumers were able to recall its correct price (Dickson and Sawyer 1990; Le Boutillier, Le Boutillier, and Neslin 1994; Wakefield and Inman 1993). This could have resulted due to lack of motivation and attention by the consumer or by the distractions present in the store itself. Moreover, it could also be due to the cognitive challenges faced by the brain which enables the consumer to recall the actual price of the product. As explained by the psychologist Daniel Schacter in his book ‘The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers’

Purpose of the research

The overall purpose of the research is to understand the concept between price attention and memory when purchasing items also through this research we would be able to determine whether the marketing factors effect a consumers buying power or whether people consider the price when buying goods from shops. Hence this research is done to either approve the listed hypothesis or to reject one.

Hypothesis

A hypothesis, in a scientific context, is a testable statement about the relationship between two or more variables or a proposed explanation for some observed phenomenon. The researcher’s prediction is usually referred to as the alternative hypothesis, and any other outcome as the null hypothesis — basically, the opposite outcome to what is predicted. Nevertheless, both is proposed and one hypothesis is rejected after the research has been completed. (WhatIs.com)

Hypothesis 1

Null hypothesis (H1) Men are better at recalling price than woman

Alternative hypothesis (H2) Women are better at recalling price than men

As it is believed that men are more superior than woman, many agree that men have better memory than woman. Men tend to recall things that they have seen just once.

Hypothesis 2

Null hypothesis (H5) When buying variety of items people tend to forget the prices more often

Alternative hypothesis (H6) People do not forget the prices even if they are purchasing variety of items

It is evident that no man can remember a list of items which they have seen just once. Same goes to the prices, even though they have seen the price of the item before buying it they are also exposed to the prices of other irrelevant products which confuses them and that memory is blocked by other memory which the person just saw.

Hypothesis 3

Null hypothesis (H9) Recollection of price of grocery is much less than cosmetics

Alternative hypothesis (H10) Recollection of price of grocery in not less than cosmetics

The price of grocery varies widely and it changes due to various reasons. It can be either overpriced due to bad weather or it can be cheap due to over stock of good or other valid reason. However, when we look into cosmetics they usually have a fixed price which makes it easier to remember the price of products being bought. Additionally, people look for products which are of good quality and cheaper items.

Methodology

“Methodology is the philosophical framework within which the research is conducted or the foundation upon which the research is based” (Brown, 2006)

To get the results for the research the whole procedure took more than a week to complete. Firstly, a small interview was conducted in order to prove the hypothesis. It only included some basic information regarding the consumer. For example; how much the person earn a month? Gender, and what the person do for a living? Is he married or not. After doing such, accompany the person to shopping, observe his/her behavior while he/she is selecting the required products. Note how much time is spent on selecting the products needed and how absent minded or how much attention is paid to the price while shopping. Also note any unusual behavior when the person checks the price of the products before actually buying it. After the person has done shopping ask for the receipt. Now explain to the person that you are going check how good his memory is. Also explain that any value close to the actual value would be fine. For example, the person bought a tooth brush which cost MVR25 but he guessed it as 24 hence his recollection of price is correct also any decimal values will not be considered as some products have values such as MVR2.345 the answer would have been correct if he says it cost MVR2 only. After you are done with the recollection of prices ask whether the person really needed to buy the products or was he/she doing it for someone else. The chances of while buying goods for others the person sometimes gives exact amount of money to buy them that is for everyday household items.

Results/Analysis and finding

In Fig 1 shows a table in which a 23-year-old male went shopping for his mom. Whose occupancy range about MVR4500-8000. It took him half an hour to figure out which items to buy. He bought a mob, mop bucket, broomstick and a soft bun which was for himself. There were three different types of mop and broomstick. From his behavior he was trying to buy an item which would satisfy his mom. An item both cheap and has good quality. After he was done shopping when he was asked to recall the price as shown in Fig 1 he was able to correctly remember the price of only two items. His overall recall percentage is 96%. As the number of items purchased were less he was easily able to remember values close to the actual price. His average difference percentage is 4% which showed that he had distractions all around him but due to less variety he scored pretty well.

According to Fig 2 a 27-year-old male went shopping for his family. He did have a list of items with him while shopping. His occupancy ranges between MVR8000-12000. From his behavior and talks I was able to grasp he had kids as well. He was very focused as he had to buy mostly cosmetic products. In Fig 2 shows that he had recall percentage of 92% with an average difference of 5.8. After he done shopping he was able to recall only 3 items actual price. Other items he was able to recall very close values as he was very focused on buying cheap but quality products which matches his families need.

Fig 3 shows middle aged women who earns more than MVR10000 a month with 2 kids and came for monthly shopping. She mostly bought grocery items and a few cosmetic items. She had bought about 24 varieties of items from the same store. But she was done shopping in an hour. When buying the grocery, she did ask for the prices of the items but didn’t careless and bought them anyways. When asked about the price of the items she could not recall the exact amount, when questioned she answered saying the prices vary nevertheless the prices here are affordable on top of that variety of items are available unlike other shops where only one item is available and have to go to different shops to buy the missing item. Out of 24 items she correctly recalled only 6 items price. She also had mentioned while shopping she normally does not remember the price of the items she purchases as she only goes for shopping once or twice a month. The average difference of the recollection is 7%.

In Fig 4 a 22-year-old female went shopping with her sister. Of course in order to do the research I also went along with them. They had bought cosmetics which they choose very precisely. To them the price mattered however they had an average recall percentage of 97% with an average of 3% as a difference in in the prices. They did not buy a variety of items however they had bought 7 items in which they recalled successfully the price of 5 items.

The seven sins of memory

“The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers” is a book by the chairperson of Harvard University’s psychology department Daniel Schacter, PhD, a longtime memory researcher. As he has noted that same brain mechanisms are involved both memory’s strengths and sins. He explains that, these sins shouldn’t be taken as flaws in the architecture of memory, instead these should merely be considered as the costs paid for the benefits of memory. The Seven Sins of Memory can also be related with Seven Deadly Sins, which is the idea behind the book. (Shretha) In this research some of the sins were observed.

• Transience–the reduction of accessibility of memory over time. While a degree of this is normal with aging, decay of or damage to the hippocampus and temporal lobe can cause extreme forms of it. (MURRAY, 2003)
• Absent-mindedness–lapses of attention and forgetting to do things. This sin operates both when a memory is formed (the encoding stage) and when a memory is accessed (the retrieval stage). (Schacter, D. L. (2008)
• Blocking–temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-the-tongue syndrome.
• Suggestibility–incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading questions, deception and other causes.
• Bias–retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs. Psychologist Michael Ross, PhD, and others have shown that present knowledge, beliefs and feelings skew our memory for past events, said Schacter. For example, research indicates that people currently displeased with a romantic relationship tend to have a disproportionately negative take on past states of the relationship.
• Persistence–unwanted recollections that people can’t forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Misattribution–attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven’t.

Lack of data collecting methods and sample size

Primary data was mainly used however the primary data collected was not enough to make an assumption about the whole market. It is very certain that with the results of only five people, we cannot generalize it for the whole population. Even if we do, the results are uncertain and it can either be too biased as the sample size we have chosen are random and the people selected are related to us and they almost have the same attitude and cultural preferences towards products and people. For the research only five samples were selected which is too small to make an assumption about the whole population based on the five peoples results which varies accordingly.

Recommendation: more data could have been collected with a wide range of sampling size. This would greatly give more efficient and realistic results. Also more data could have been obtained if the target market was big.

Limited time

Overall the research process went very smoothly however one of the major limitation when doing the analysis was the limited time. It was very difficult as there was too much stress and a lot to be covered with in the short period of time. When evaluating the consumers about the price recall of the goods they bought most of them were in a hurry to go home. They all seemed a little too distracted while recalling the prices. One of them literally just guessed the prices and stormed off. It was difficult to convince people it would take only a minute or five for the whole process to be over.

Recommendation: more time should have been spent with the participants so that their rational and irrational behavior can also be evaluated more. the selected participant could have been a person who had cleared his/her schedule just for shopping and a person not in a hurry which would have given accurate results as expected.

Lack of promotional activities/awareness

The store selected is known to do a lot of promotional activities however the amount of promotional activities they have done is not enough to grab the attention of customers who are not focused on the price but the quality of the product. People who earn more than MVR10000 a month mostly does not consider price as a factor when purchasing goods however they do consider the quality and reliability of the products brand they want. Moreover, the store does not have labeled prices of some of the products stacked in the shelves. It also influences consumers price attention and memory.

Recommendation: More promotional activities could have been done to influence a person’s memory on price of the products they purchase. Prices of the goods should have been labeled accordingly so that it does not affect the results of the research.

References

• Brown. (2006). methodology – Research -Methodology. Retrieved from Research-Methodology: https://research-methodology.net/research-methodology/
• Margaret Rouse. (2019). What is hypothesis? – Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved from WhatIs.com: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/hypothesis
• MURRAY, B. (2003). American Psycological Accociation. Retrieved from The seven sins of memory: https://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/sins
• Your article Library. (2019). Consumer Behaviour: Meaning/Definition and Nature of Consumer Behaviour. Retrieved from Consumer Behaviour: Meaning/Definition and Nature of Consumer Behaviour: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/marketing/market-segmentation/consumer-behaviour-meaningdefinition-and-nature-of-consumer-behaviour/32301

Personalized value can be described through consumption benefits which are connected to the customer as a person – beliefs that guide people on how to behave throughout the day and life activities (Rokeach, 1968; Kahle, 1989)

The self-concept in personalization value is a more significant level than the self-concept in social value where the customers is not worried on not getting respect from other individuals, it is more of how they see and respect themselves. This is explained as the higher version of self-esteem because customers want to respect themselves and not because they want the respect from others. It is how customers perceive themselves (Burns, 1979).

As every individual has his/her own values, it also means that they will perceive products differently (Oliver 1996, Huber, 2001). This can be explained through an easy example. One person is concerned about their health or is just living a healthy lifestyle which means that when buying food, this person will read the ingredients and that are preferably nutrients and less additives. The second person is just living a lifestyle in which he/she does not care about calories or nutrients, he/she values food on its taste or on the portion. The consumption value is defined as what the customers gets from the product based on their beliefs that are aligned with things they feel are important in their life (ex. principles, characteristics) (Khalifa, 2004).

In spite of the fact that the substance of society lies on its convictions, conduct, standards and qualities that are normally shared by people (Leung, 2005) which allows social desire and comprehension of the good, pretty, and others. Each individual has its own assessment so not every person has a similar point of view of what is fortunate or unfortunate and what is significant or not. Some social qualities might be recognized extensively and some might be acknowledged by the small group of individuals (Lai, 1995). Also, values in general can be performed differently for each individual because everyone is unique and has their own life goals.

People will value the product in a way of it fitting into their own characteristics and what they are looking for. They tend to accept and also reject what is and is not in line with characteristics. Personalised value is more of a self-orientation because people tend to only think of themselves and will buy product that has effect on them and based on their reaction on product (Holbrook, 1996). The value is gained when product value meets characteristics of customer value. Personal characteristic has an important role in determining the ideal product quality. This point of view suggests that the customer has distinctive objective or reason in buying a product, thus has diverse impression of value (Zeithaml, 1988). Consumers can value the products based on their physical traits, or on their image that they represent. It is when product image is matching the self-image (Sirgy, 1986).

Some other variables from consumer behavior that can be connected with personalized value, which I mentioned and wrote about in previous answers, are consumer and product characteristics which are connected in a way that people tend to purchase products that are matching their needs and wants, also the self-image which is also connected with our perception of ourselves and what we think is good for us.

REFERENCES

1. Rokeach, M., 1968. The role of values in public opinion research. Public Opin Q, 32(4): 547–559
2. Kahle, L., 1989. Using the list of values (LOV) to understand consumers. J Consum Mark, 6(3): 5-12
3. Burns, R.B., 1979. The self-concept in theory, measurement, development, and behavior. New York: Longman
4. Oliver, R., 1996. Varieties of value in the consumption satisfaction response. Advances in Consumer Research, 23: 143–147
5. Huber, F., A. Herrmann and R.E. Morgan, 2001. Gaining competitive advantage through customer value oriented management. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 18(1): 41-53
6. Khalifa, A.S., 2004. Customer value: A review of recent literature and an integrative configuration. Management Decision, 42(5–6): 645–666
7. Leung, K., R.S. Bhagat, N.R. Buchan, M. Erez and C.B. Gibson, 2005. Culture and international business: Recent advances and their implications for future research. Journal of International Business Studies, 36(4): 357-378
8. Lai, A.W., 1995. Consumer values, product benefits and customer value: A consumption behavior approach. Advances in Consumer Research, 22(1): 381-388
9. Holbrook, M.B., 1996. Customer value – a framework for analysis and research. Advances in Consumer Research, 23(1): 138–142
10. Zeithaml, V.A., 1988. Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: A means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52(3): 2-22
11. Sirgy, J.M., 1986. Self-congruity: Toward a theory of personality and cybernetics. New York: Praeger

Abstract

Induced hypocrisy is a two-step dissonance paradigm, consisting of normative commitment and mindfulness of past transgressions. The inconsistency between one’s belief and action lead to psychological discomfort, such as guilt, motivating people to adopt attitude or new behavior that better aligns with the belief. This paper explores individual role of normative commitment and mindfulness and the moderating role of norm salience in the context of eco-friendly product consumption. This paper predicts that while mindfulness can induce enough guilt to promote attitudinal change, it induces less change compared to both commitment and mindfulness. The effect is predicted to be magnified by high injunctive norm salience.

At the end of World War II, consumers saw a sudden rise in their disposable income and were eager to spend (Cohen, 2004). On top of this trend, purchasing material goods were no longer viewed as indulgences (Cohen, 2004). Instead, consumers were praised as patriotic for contributing to the ultimate success of American way of life (Cohen, 2004) and gratified for their successes with material goods ranging from television sets via cars to home. This mass consumption has now come to rear its ugly head, as it is found to be causing environmental harm. While the impact of some consumption, such as cars, is more obvious, the negative impact clothing consumption is less visible but just as potent. For instance, the fashion industry is the second-largest water polluter, and textile production makes up 10% of global carbon emissions (McFall-Johnsen, 2019).

People are more cognizant of the effect of climate change and consider them to pose a serious threat in their lifetime. In response, people are turning toward the consumption of eco-friendly products. Such products include clothing made from organic cotton and recycled fibers. While people express their desire to purchase such products, there is a disconnect between their beliefs and actual behavior in that they often make a decision that goes against their belief (Davari & Strutton, 2014). For instance, they may decide to opt for a conventional t-shirt at H&M instead of choosing a shirt that is made from recycled fiber due to the price difference. With this disparity between belief and behavior, there needs to be new methods of encouraging people to actually follow their beliefs.

Previous research that looked at using social norms to change people’s behavior (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990). There are two types of social norms: descriptive and injunctive norms. Descriptive norms describe a perception of what most people do in a social context, and injunctive norms describe perception of what most people would approve or disapprove (Cialdini et al., 1990). Norms can motivate and direct people’s action when they are made salient and guide them to act in norm-consistent ways (Berkowitz & Daniels, 1964).

There is other literature that looks at motivations for behavioral change, such as theory of cognitive dissonance. Festinger proposed that people experience cognitive dissonance when they hold two conflicting cognitions (Festinger, 1957). People experience an uncomfortable feeling of psychological discomfort and become motivated to reduce that feeling by behavioral change. Aronson added onto Festinger’s work, stating that dissonance arouses from inconsistencies between self and behavior that violates that self-concept (Thibodeau & Aronson, 1992). Relating back to discrepancy between green beliefs and behavior, this would mean that this discrepancy would lead people to feel psychological discomfort and motivate them to change their behavior.

In the 1990s, Aronson and colleagues introduced induced hypocrisy paradigm, which is a form of cognitive dissonance, and demonstrated that under certain conditions, induced hypocrisy is a social influence technique. This theory proposes that inducing people to realize what they are practicing does not match what they are preaching, forcing them to reassess their behavior and ultimately take appropriate action to settle the discrepancy (Aronson, Fried, & Stone, 1991). This effect has been shown to successfully increase the use of condoms (Aronson et al., 1991; Stone, Aronson, Crain, Winslow, & Fried, 1994), water conservation (Dickerson, Thibodeau, Aronson, & Miller, 1992), recycling behavior (Fried & Aronson, 1995), and driving safety (Fointiat, Morisot, & Pakuszewski, 2008). Considering that inducing hypocrisy in people have led to an increase in more desirable behavior, one could use this paradigm to close the gap between one’s green beliefs and behavioral intentions.

H1: If hypocrisy is induced to arouse psychological discomfort within people who hold eco-friendly values, then there will be a greater motivation to reduce this discomfort by indicating a higher intention to purchase eco-friendly products.

There are two steps to induce hypocrisy, in which people advocate for something that is socially desirable and then reflect back on their past transgressions. The first step is the salience of normative behavior. Participants can be instructed to make a speech to publicly advocate for a socially desirable behavior in front of a video camera or write a speech promoting the behavior (Priolo et al., 2019). Increasing the salience of norms, especially injunctive norms, led to a stronger behavioral change (Fointiat, 2008). In the second step, participants are instructed to recall their past behavior that does not conform to what they have advocated for earlier. In doing so, dissonance is aroused, and the participants are then motivated to reduce the psychological discomfort by acting accordance to what they have publicly advocated.

In the most recent meta-analysis by Priolo et al. (2019), they made a tentative conclusion that the first step may not be needed to induce hypocrisy for attitudinal and behavioral change. They proposed that being mindful of one’s own transgression is enough to make the normative behavior salient. This implies that the norm has to be prevalent and widely accepted in the society such that it immediately comes to mind when people reflect back on their actions. If it is so, then there should be no significant difference in people’s behavioral intention between hypocrisy condition that involves both steps and mindfulness. Thus, I hypothesize that

H2: Injunctive norm salience will moderate the relationship between induced hypocrisy and intention to purchase eco-friendly products in that there is a higher intention to purchase when injunctive norm salience is high compared to when it is low.

Priolo et al. (2019) also found that the effect of hypocrisy was weak and could not conclude that induced hypocrisy arouses psychological discomfort. Regardless, prior studies have consistently shown that hypocrisy induction creates feelings of guilt and discomfort (Son Hing, Li, & Zanna, 2002). To lessen the negative feelings induced by hypocrisy, people will increase their intention to purchase eco-friendly products.

H3: Guilt will mediate the effect between induced hypocrisy and intention to purchase eco-friendly products.

Participants

Participants will be recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N = 200) and will be paid 75 cents for their time. A measure of attitude toward environmental conservation will be measured and whether participants partake in eco-friendly practices to filter out for those who have a positive attitude toward environmental conservation but do not actively partake in those activities. All participants will be residents of the United States, all over the 18 years of age. I first determined the sample size given an estimated effect size from a previous unpublished exploratory study, by means of G*Power application (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). Assuming that there will be a moderate effect size of r = .30 (Priolo et al., 2019) and power of .95, G*Power estimated a total sample size of 147. In case of incomplete surveys and participants failing attention checks, I will try to recruit 51 more participants.

Materials and Procedures

The design of this study is adapted from Stone et al.’s (1994) paper. This study will employ a 2 (hypocrisy vs. mindfulness) X 2 (norm salience: low vs. high) between-subjects design. I will vary whether or not subjects make a public commitment to advocating for environmentally friendly practices, such as purchasing eco-friendly products, and the degree to which they were made mindful of their past failures to be environmentally conscious. I will also manipulate whether or not subjects are reminded that most people would disapprove (injunctive norm) if they do not act environmentally friendly.

After reading the disclosure form, subjects in the hypocrisy condition will be told that they would be helping develop persuasive messages for persuading others to act environmentally friendly. They were told that part of their participation will involve making a short message on the importance of choosing eco-friendly products and posting the message on a public online forum. To help the subjects compose their message, they were given a list of facts about the importance of environmental conservation and the negative impact of fashion industry (e.g., “Fast fashion industry is the number two water polluter in the world.”). For those in the high norm salience condition, there will be an extra statement that reminds the subjects that with the rapidly increasing effects of climate change, many people would not approve of them if they do not purchase eco-friendly products in favor of the cheaper, conventional products. Subjects in the low norm salience condition will not have the extra statement.

The subjects in the mindfulness only condition will be told that they will read a short list of facts about the importance of environmentalism and then asked to write down their most recent transgression, when they did not choose eco-friendly products when they had the choice to do so. Subjects in the hypocrisy condition will also be asked to write down their most recent transgression.

Dependent Measures

To test the effectiveness of the manipulations, I will use self-report measures of eco-friendly product purchases. The self-report measures are designed to measure subjects’ past behavior and future intent to purchase eco-friendly products. The two questions were “In the past how often did you buy eco-friendly products, despite their higher cost?” (1-Not often, 9-Very often) and “In the future how likely are you to buy eco-friendly products, despite their higher cost?” (1-Not very likely, 9-Very likely). In addition to these two dependent measures, a control question on price sensitivity will be asked (1-Not very sensitive, 9-Very sensitive). To test the mediator, the subjects will complete an affect measure adapted from Son Hing et al.’s (2002) study on guilt after reflecting back on their past transgression. Participants will rate how well each affect word (e.g., guilty) describe how they are feeling.

Results

Any participant that did not provide complete data will be excluded from the analyses. Assuming that preliminary analysis does not reveal any main or interactive effects of price sensitivity, I will move on to analyzing the two main dependent measures. Since there are four conditions, one-way ANOVA will be used for analysis. Following my prediction, I expect that there will be a main effect of hypocrisy in that the mean of hypocrisy (advocate + mindfulness) is significantly higher than the mean of mindfulness only. In addition, I expect that there will be a main effect of norm salience in that the mean of high norm salience is significantly higher than the mean of low norm salience. Most importantly, I expect that there will be an interaction between hypocrisy and norm salience. Simple effects analyses would reveal that high norm salience would have a higher intention to purchase eco-friendly products in the future among the subjects in the hypocrisy condition and that low norm salience would have the lowest intention to purchase eco-friendly products in the future among the subjects in the mindfulness only condition.

Effect of hypocrisy mediated through guilt

The primary purpose of this analysis is to examine whether induced hypocrisy would have a positive effect on future intention to buy eco-friendly products, mediated by psychological discomfort, or more specifically guilt. I will enter the variables of interest into a mediational model and compute the bias-corrected 95% bootstrap confidence intervals for indirect effect using 10,000 bootstrap samples using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013). The mediation model will test for significant indirect effect through guilt. Assuming the hypothesis is correct, the mediational analysis will indicate that induced hypocrisy is operating through feelings of guilt. To lessen the feelings of guilt, the participants will be more willing to engage in an eco-friendly activity, such as future purchase intention.

Discussion

Overall, this study examined the magnitude effect of inducing hypocrisy (public advocacy + mindfulness). As predicted, hypocrisy (public advocacy + mindfulness) would have the highest intention for purchase. Guilt would be magnified by high injunctive norm salience. For mindfulness only condition, Priolo et al. (2019) have previously conclude from their meta-analysis that there is no statistically significant difference between having both steps of inducing hypocrisy and just having the transgression recall step, indicating that the process itself makes the normative behavior salient. This would explain a high intention to purchase eco-friendly products for mindfulness only + high norm salience condition. Just being mindful of one’s hypocritical behavior is enough to induce guilt, and this guilt is magnified by injunctive norm. There may be a theoretical contribution with this result in that being mindful of past transgression is enough to induce guilt to change people’s behavior. However, to induce the highest level of guilt and higher intention to change behavior, this study would indicate that both steps are needed. Finally, mindfulness + low norm salience would produce the lowest intention to purchase out of four conditions. Even though the participants may be aware of their past transgressions, they may dismiss their guilt because they are aware that others would not scrutinize their behavior.

References

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17. High Salience Hypocrisy Mindfulness 7.6 6.9 Low Salience Hypocrisy Mindfulness 6.6 4.4000000000000004

Introduction

Consumers buy spontaneously when they suddenly feel the strong desire to immediately buy product offerings without taking into account the consequences of buying a bid. Impulse buying is not only associated with low costs, but also with low liability. This may also be due to the high quality and associated products (Aruna, and Santhi, 2015). It can also be assumed that impulsive purchases are associated with hedonistic purchases, when the thirst for adventure, thrills, excitement and the feeling of flying can lead to a decline in self-restraint. Impulse purchases are relatively uncommon and exciting, emotional and not rational and are perceived as bad rather than good. It can also be assumed that no pre-order phases are relevant. A marketer can take a number of steps to increase the likelihood of a customer buying spontaneously in a given environment. As the term implies, the purchase was not specifically planned. The process is fairly widespread and can have a significant impact on marketers (Aruna, and Santhi, 2015). This paper mainly focuses on impulse behaviour of generations of X, Y and Z.

Aims of the research

The objectives of this research is to determine the impulse buying behavior of generations X, Y and Z. from the main objective the following secondary objectives came up:

• To find out the motives that urge the respondents to impulse buy
• To find out in what state the respondents make an impulse purchase
• To find out whether technology and online shops have an impact on impulse buying behavior
• To determine whether the impulse purchases are online or offline
• To find whether the respondents regret impulse purchasing a product or service
• To find out whether the respondents have made impulse purchases in the past six months.

Literature review

There are several studies indicating a significant and growing trend towards unplanned purchases. Men and women differ significantly in terms of the affective components of the process, including the overwhelming desire to buy positive buying sensations and components of the cognitive process, including cognitive considerations and unplanned purchases, with the exception of ignoring the future (Aruna and Santhi, 2015). Product category, frequency of purchase, brand comparison and age were important factors for planned purchases and impulse purchases (Chan, Cheung, and Lee, 2017). Participants whose resources were depleted felt a greater need to buy than subscribers whose resources were not spent, were willing to spend more and actually spent more money in unexpected buying situations (Aruna and Santhi, 2015). There is no unified stance on this unplanned consumer behavior and incentives that trigger impulse buying. If competition in the market is high and all types of companies are promoting their activities, stimulating growth in the consumer goods market can be a strong competitive advantage (Chan, Cheung, and Lee, 2017). The central relationship between shop window, credit card, promotions (discounts, free products) and consumer behavior (Aruna and Santhi, 2015). Therefore, incentives should be realized in this business by creating a desire through sensory marketing and the ability to touch products, through clear and visible information on promotions and promotions, so that the consumer remembers what he needs. Unplanned purchases in pharmacies, supermarkets, department stores and shops. The above study highlights impulse buying in terms of consumer behavior in different countries. The literature suggests that Generation Y or adolescents around the world have different types of impulse purchases. Therefore, this study is gaining in importance in the analysis of impulsive buying behavior of young people (Aruna and Santi, 2015).

In earlier studies, impulsive buying behavior was defined as an unplanned purchase because consumers made a purchase without buying intent. However, many researchers agree that the concept of impulsive buying behavior should not be limited to an unplanned purchase, but should also consider the impact of the stimulus and thus the local decision. Later, the researchers recognized the importance of behavioral motivation impulses (Khan, Hui, Chen, and Hoe, 2016).

Consumer behavior and introduced theoretical foundations that focus on impulses of impulse buying behavior. According to previous results, situational, personal and demographic factors may be among the factors that determine impulsive buying behavior (Blut, Xiao, and Grewal, 2019). Currently, however, there is limited research to investigate the relationship between these factors and impulsive buying behavior (Khan, Hui, Chen, and Hoe, 2016).

Methodology

Study Design and Approach: This study followed the descriptive design of the study using a single transversal approach.

Collection method and data collection. The task force for this study included full-time generations X, Y and Z in the United Kingdom. The study structure included the residents of the United Kingdom. From this sample structure, a non-probabilistic sample of one area was selected. An approach was used in which 122 questionnaires for volunteer work were administered to the three generations. The questionnaires were evenly distributed to both male and female from generation X, Y and Z

Research Instrument: For the purposes of this study, a standardized, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the required data. This questionnaire consists of two sections. The first section queried the subjects’ demographic data, and the second section used published research scales to measure the impulse buying behavior of generations X, Y and Z. A six-point Likert scale was used to measure the responses of the samples.

Thematic considerations: Before the questionnaires were distributed, they were submitted to the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Business and Information Technology for approval and ethical explanation of the campus. The questionnaire was rated as low risk and an ethical resolution was issued.

Data Analysis: IBM Social Statistics Package (SPSS) version 23.0 for Windows was used to analyze the collected data. The statistical analysis included the descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics includes measures of frequency, measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion or variation and measures of position.

Discussion and conclusion

The study focuses on the definition of impulsive buying behavior between generations X, Y and Z. Of the 122 respondents, 51.64% were men, 45.08% were women and 3.28% did not want to say so. The distribution by age was as shown in the results, with the representation of all three generations. According to the results, 85.83% of respondents have made impulsive purchases in the last six months, but 14.17% have not. Motivated respondents were discounts and offers, great shopping pleasure, social trends and peer pressure, and the fear of missing out on something (FOMO). This discovery is similar to the discovery by Sundström et al. (2013), suggesting that consumers with discounts and the ability to make a deal are easy to win. The inspiration of friends, mainly through images in social networks, affects the impulsive tendencies of the buyer. Other triggers that have a positive impact on the buying decision include free shipping and free returns, as well as the feeling that the retailer feels reliable to the consumer.

Respondents make impulsive purchases when excited, bored, sad, angry and drunk. This discovery is similar to the discovery by Sundström et al. (2013), suggesting that consumers seek immediate rewards, coupled with a sense of material happiness. Respondents in the study view impulsive purchases not as something negative, but as a way to achieve rapid stimulation in a bored state of mind.

The category of goods that respondents normally buy spontaneously are clothes, shoes, jewelry and watches. This is because these are products that you buy out of complacency and that make you happy. The highest percentage of respondents sometimes regret having made an impulse purchase. Some reasons why you think this product is unusable for the home and for cost overruns. This discovery is similar to the discovery by Sundström et al. (2013), suggesting that respondents in the study do not express regret, but tend to rationalize their purchases as useful products for them, even though at second glance they may well realize they do not need those three pairs of shoes.

In conclusion, the present study is an attempt to provide an integrative idea of the consumer behavior of impulses by examining multidimensional factors that influence the consumer impulse buying behavior of the X, Y, and Z. The main contribution of this research to science is the integrative consideration of factors such as situational and personal factors with their size, which influence the buying behavior of X, Y and Z pulses in a generation.

“People become especially nostalgic when they are anxious about the present, and, especially, the future. The past is safe because it is completely predictable. Connecting with the past through familiar, loved brands transports people to another time by evoking the same feelings they experienced so long ago.”

Overview – Nostalgia as a Selling Point

Nostalgia is one of life’s greatest feelings that can be incredibly gratifying. Everyone is easily drawn back to a better, simpler time in her/his life. In a time where everything is monetized, can Nostalgia be a selling point too? In post-modern society, films and shows are one of the major vessels to deliver nostalgia to the masses. Everyone is well aware of the status held by Star Wars. The original three were a cultural phenomenon that fully impacted and altered the entertainment industry for the next 40 or so years (Wohler, 2017). ‘Stranger Things’ by Netflix is another show banking on nostalgia. It is an 80s show and is the 3rd most watched series in Netflix history, as per Variety.com.

Nostalgia is being used to popularize the sales of merchandise and show spinoffs. Millennials are the biggest consumers of nostalgia which makes them the perfect target market for industries ranging from tech to entertainment. Using nostalgia, companies are trying to fill the void in their creativity department.

The Big question is, Is Nostalgia a selling point or just a fad? It’s success in entertainment industry doesn’t duplicate well with other industries and thus needs a deep dive into the question. Interestingly for the time being, irrespective of whether Nostalgia can be a selling point or not, consumers are buying memorabilia that can give them the comfort of the yester years and thus every marketer is trying to encash on it, but for how long? Can this effect be extended, or the reality is different from what meets the eye. I will discuss counter views and my personal views in this paper and try to reach a conclusion on the notion of considering Nostalgia as a selling point.

Motivation behind the research

Nostalgia is driving sales throughout the globe, be it Nokia phones, Netflix shows, Audi Cars or Coca-Cola. Nostalgia has become such an important tool in marketing that without knowing, Nostalgia is evolving into an industry. Nokia 3310 mobiles are in the shops. Star Wars films fill the screens. Vinyl record stores overflow with hipsters. Pauline Hanson (Australian Politician) is in Parliament. Actually, let’s not bring politics into this! Wait a minute, does anyone know what year it is?

In the post-modern era monetization of humans’ natural emotions have been the greatest marketing gig, be it the Valentine’s day for love, Christmas for festivity or anniversary celebrations to commemorate togetherness. Nostalgia is not far from these emotions. Nostalgic marketing taps into the yearning for a time in the past as well as the fondness attached with memories. The current state-of-affairs across the globe in terms of political, social and economic developments creates a perfect storm to stir up nostalgia. Brands that tap into this emotion are rewarded with emotional connection with the customers, which is priceless.

Life as a kid always seems much better, isn’t it? No worries, no responsibilities and no troubles. Marketers play to this and do what they always do: joyously focus on the positives and quietly downplay the negatives. Today nostalgic marketing is bigger than ever. Suddenly all the brands across globe are trying to get into it. Tried and tested is great but dated and out-of-touch? Not so much (Grant, 2017). Still, using Nostalgia as a selling point is akin to walking on a tight rope. Go too far, you lose connection with the consumers as the Brand will look tired and lazy due to a lack of originality.

Wait a minute, nostalgia should work for brands which have a long history such as Disney, McDonald and Cadbury, but a quick look across the stores and we will see new brands trading on a heritage they don’t have. So, what makes nostalgia work for some while still eluding others from success? What kind of companies can use nostalgia and to what extent? Is it growing and continue to grow or is it just a bubble waiting to burst? All these moments, questions and facts, inspired me to enquire further into the myth or reality of Nostalgia as a selling point.

Nostalgia as a Marketing tool

Nostalgia marketing is all around us and drives our purchases, without us realizing about it. Some of the brands like Facebook (by connecting us with our friends and memories), Nokia (with its flip phone) and Coca – Cola (the iconic bottle) stands testimony to this statement. Chanel is still using Marlin Monroe’s photo to sell Chanel No. 5 while the movies such as Star Wars and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are running in theatres, thanks to their ability to tap into the nostalgic memories of the yesteryears. In fact, brands such as Netflix and Disney are working on projects that specifically creates experience of the past for the adult consumers to relive their past. Shows such as

Friends and Pokemon enjoy a loyal fanbase, thanks to nostalgia. As per Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, emotional needs are more important than functional need and every marketer knows this. Thus, a positive nostalgia can evoke fond memories and take the target audience to a happy place. Marketers who can tap into this can use the positive emotions stirred by their brands to stir happy emotions and sway purchase decisions.

With disposable income and an open mind, Gen Y are being recognized as the biggest consumer demographic for nostalgia however, Gen X and Gen Z are equally important target segments because Gen X wants to relate themselves with familiar products while Gen Z wants to explore the old time, as a new experience (Lobo, 2014). Thus, nostalgia continues to be a prime way of selling old stuffs even today and seems to continue in future too. Some of the brands who have been successful in using Nostalgia as a selling point are

1. Spotify (Music Industry). It used nostalgia by using original characters from the hit movie “The NeverEnding Story” to appeal to the millennial audience to use Spotify.
2. Versace, Michael Kors, Burberry (Fashion Industry). Fashion is in love with nostalgia, from the classic 90s-era tartan at Burberry and grunge references at Miu-Miu, to 80s acid-washed denim at Stella McCartney and metallic jumpsuits at Isabel Marant. A sense of pre-smartphone time surfaced through the return of familiar trends and designers reviving their greatest hits (Hunt, 2018).
3. Pepsi & Coca-Cola (Food Industry). Pepsi & Coca-Cola both designed nostalgic promotions for reviving their old products and appealing to the loyal customers of those products. While Coca- Cola designed limited supply sale of ‘Surge’ a popular drink discontinued in 2014, Pepsi came with “Crystal Pepsi” as part of a limited run in 2016.
4. Adobe & Nintendo (Tech & Gaming Industry). Adobe promoted their “Adobe Photoshop Sketch” application for the iPad Pro using a picture of Bob Ross, a beloved 80s artist who saw resurgence in popularity in 2016. Similarly, Nintendo came out with mini-NES which was intended to give customers a chance to re- experience the reasons why they fell in love with Nintendo.
5. Netflix (Entertainment industry). Netflix came up with ‘Stranger Things’, a sci-fi thriller set in 80s. The show was such a big hit that Netflix went on to renew the series for 3 additional seasons, all set in 80s. Similarly, many movies like Ghostbuster, IT etc. have been remade to make Gen Y and Gen Z experience the thrillers of 80s and 90s.
6. Other industries (Social Media, Cars, mobiles, camera etc). Recently Nokia relaunched its iconic phones Nokia 3310 and flip phones to encash on the nostalgia these models carry. Even on social medias, the craze for retro looks is catching on and that’s why many camera manufacturers modified their camera settings to include a filter titled ‘Retro’.

Nostalgia – Is it real or a fad?

Brian Fargo, founder of inXile Entertainment, spent a decade creating sequels and spiritual successors to classics. Recently, Fargo gave a little indication that he was stuck in the past. ‘We can’t rely on nostalgia to sell,’ Fargo said. ‘Nostalgia is a two-edged sword because people’s emotional attachment to the incredible experiences they had playing these games to begin with, were are at a moment in time that can never be recreated.” (Sinclair, 2018) There’s a group of people who would love nostalgia, but that group is shrinking every year. Experience economy is growing every year and new experiences relate more to the current generation than the past experiences. The current generation believes that “the past is as elusive a dream as the future. Always distorted, always yearned for, and always seen as better. It keeps us from the truth of the present and the pain of reality” (Martin, 2014). IPG Mediabrands’ UM unit recently released findings of a global study wherein it identified 4 major cultural shifts: Nostalgia is one, dubbed as ‘Retrograde’ by UM, and the other three are centred around creating new experiences through ‘Recreate’, ‘Resist’ and ‘Reglocalize (global reach and local connection)’ (Mandese, 2019).

While Gen X and Y relate more with Retrograde/Nostalgia, Gen Z is more attached to creating new experiences through Recreate, Resist and Reglocalize. For newer brands, using nostalgia to sell can lead to cynicism from consumers. It’s very hard to sell a historic brand story based on a brand history that never existed. So, is Nostalgia a fad? Probably, its’ more of a tactic to drive sales and it’s just something that is relevant to the brand at that point. One example of this is McDonald’s – highlighting the past as it’s relevant to its present given it’s the brand’s 40th year in Australia (Wilson, 2011).

While looking at the future, companies should reduce their reliance on nostalgia. Continually relying on the past may display the brand as becoming tired and consumers could believe it’s either outdated and/or not for them. The fast pace of our lives and the technological advances have served to de-personalize relationships and remove some of the emotions of our most cherished past-times. No wonder people are trying to “turn back the clock” and recapture some the analog charm of using devices that were almost on the brink of extinction. The question is how long can brands keep on assuming that people will hold on to their pasts? (Valentine, 2016)

Personal View

In a world changing at a breakneck-speed, nostalgia gives you an escape route like wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of ‘the good old days’, when things were simpler such as not being worried about embarrassing social media photos and posts.

Nostalgia inspires people to spend money for the instant gratification in the form of happy memories. No matter how tech savvy we become, we will still be human and as humans, we will continue to be governed by our emotions. That’s why, Nostalgia as a selling point will continue to exist, especially if marketers are smart enough to discover the value of connecting with customers on a more in-depth, emotional level.

Funny part is that, you don’t need a long history to enjoy the power of nostalgia. Connecting with old ideas and beloved concepts is a free tool that any company can use. With a little planning, even the most modern company can join the retro revolution and design a heart-warming nostalgia marketing strategy (Harvey, 2017). With the current state-of-affairs, nostalgia is certainly here to stay, and big brands know this. The competition is on how innovative these companies can get with Nostalgia without losing their creative shine. Going back in time for a nostalgic throwback can be worthwhile for both the young and old. How? The younger generation gets a taste of what it was like before their time, however, the older generation, who experienced the product originally also gets to relive their moments. See, that’s why nostalgia is becoming a selling point.

Recently, I saw a Cadbury introducing retro boxes just in time for Christmas. The retro box was £20, while the original box was available for $4. Which would Gen Y prefer? Retro, of course. I can imagine Gen Z going for the retro boxes too, just to get the “blast from the past” feeling and show their grandchildren what they used to have as a gift.

Interestingly what I have experienced is, the people buying most of the retro themed stuff are predominantly from Gen Z. They never experienced the time when these items were common, yet they are heavily invested in recreating old times. Through the power of nostalgia – many retro items have gone viral in recent years. Why am I mentioning this? Well, I think that nostalgia can also be felt by people who never had the original experience and that’s why I believe Nostalgia will continue to be the biggest selling point in the near future too.

Bibliography

1. Grant, R. (2017, 06 21). Past masters: the power of nostalgic marketing. Retrieved from Marketing: https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-c/past-masters-power-nostalgic-marketing/
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7. Sinclair, B. (2018, 05 3). We can’t rely on nostalgia to sell. Retrieved from gameindustry.biz: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-05-03-we-cant-rely-on-nostalgia-to-sell
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Abstract

Nowadays, online sales are not only very common in China, but also popular all over the world. How to determine the purchasing intention of online consumers is very important. By analyzing the purchasing behavior of online consumers, the factors of consumers’repeated purchases may be the satisfaction of goods and the brand. Loyalty and product regret will determine whether consumers buy again.

Introduction

Because China has a huge population, with the development of Internet technology, the business led by Alibaba is becoming more and more popular in China. There are many e-commerce platforms, such as Jingdong, Suning and so on. As the number of platforms available to consumers increases, so does the number of products available. In 2018, the turnover of Taobao reached 21.53 billion yuan in a single day. So understanding consumers’preferences, understanding consumers’ purchases and determining the factors that determine consumers’repurchase can increase the frequency of consumers’ repurchase. If companies can better understand their customers, they can present products or services more effectively and continuously improve them in order to strengthen their competitive advantage. According to the analysis of single Festival customer data, By analyzing the data from unotice Public Opinion System, we can get a better understanding of the specific and accurate social situation.Using quantitative research method and consumer purchase data analysis, price cheap will affect consumer satisfaction, the degree of efforts to search for other products, and the attractiveness of other alternative products will affect whether consumers regret the product and whether consumers will repeat it. Decision of next purchase.Market orientation and customer satisfaction research show there is direct connection between customer satisfaction and organizational performance (Garver and Gagnon, 2002)[1]

Research objectives

Specific survey is now China’s online consumers who are the main group, male or female, they mainly buy high-end durable goods or cheap alternatives, so as to infer their repurchase perception of goods.

Mainly understand what is the biggest problem of online operators, according to data analysis, what is the most complaint situation of consumers in single festivals, and investigate the competing products available online, so that consumers can have many choices.

Literature Review

Documents overwhelmingly describe the subjective emotional intentions of consumers, emphasizing that the main intention of consumer repurchase is the emotional dominance of consumers. Some neglect the objective factors such as the speed of express delivery during singles’Festival and the service attitude of businessmen.

Significance of the research

Customer repurchase and brand loyalty, brand emotional binding are important factors affecting product revenue. Understanding the determinants of online consumer repurchase is the purpose of this study[2]. The general scope of concern is the consumers who shop online, especially in China where online sales have become very popular. The consumers who sell online on single festivals are the main ones. In 2018, sales of Taobao Singles Day in China reached 21.53 billion yuan. Chinese people like to use Wechat and pay for Taobao, which makes online sales more convenient.At present, it is believed that the reasons affecting online consumers’repetition of purchases lie in their satisfaction with the goods and regret for the products, while the main factors affecting their satisfaction with the goods are the degree of repetition. Because of the degree of efforts to search for product information, firmness to product, loyalty to brand and emotional binding to brand. The factors affecting regret for purchasing include the degree of effort to search for products, the attraction of alternative products, and the firmness of the products. This is a theory for determining the determinants of online consumers’repeated purchases. Determining the determinants of online consumers’ repurchase in the network environment will clarify the company’s development route and marketing methods for the product. Once this factor is clear, it will increase the company’s revenue for the product and the company’s product. Product development goals.

Population and unit of analysis

The survey data were collected from the ‘2016 Double Eleventh Consumer Survey’ published by the Joint Questionnaire Network of Yibang Power Network. According to the public opinion data of Red Mai, among the people who participated in the ‘Double Eleventh’ shopping, 35.29% thought that ‘cheaper price than usual’ was one of the main factors causing shopping desire. In addition to the people who only thought that ‘Double Eleventh’ had preferential surprises, 16.72% thought that the purpose of online shopping was ‘excellent’. Vouchers; there are a few people who feel ‘fresh’ and this group accounts for 13.00%. Iculty in returning goods, and 21% of other factors. The most worrying purchasing problem for consumers on Singles’Day is business deception, with 62% of them raising the price first and then lowering the price, 45.1% worrying about less inventory, 59.1% worrying about slow delivery, 51% worrying about inconsistencies between goods and publicity, 21.6% worrying about poor after-sales service,.Men’s consumption is 48.7% and women’s consumption is 51.3% in Singles’ Day. Among them, 72.9% purchased clothing, shoes and hats, 12.9% jewelry, 38.7% electronic digital, 60.7% daily necessities, 14.4% maternal and infant products and 18.6% fresh products. Another data comes from the Red Mail Public Opinion Detection System. Red Mail Public Opinion Data shows that consumers’shopping habits generally stay longer, at least 5-15 minutes, accounting for 41.01% of the total population, while the number of shoppers who spend a long time (15-30 minutes) to select the best quality businesses is not small, accounting for 31.65%. Taobao, which has a large number of low-end customers, has become the shopping paradise, ranking first in sales performance, accounting for 29.25%. Taobao, accounting for 29.25%. Compared with 29.25%, Taobao, which has a large number of low-end customers, still has the highest attention on the website, followed by B2C websites such as Jingdong, Suning and Dangdang, which have attracted many middle and high-end users on Taobao.

Through data analysis, Cheap price is not only the main purpose of consumers’purchase, but also an important measure of satisfaction with commodities..the time spent by consumers in searching for goods shows that most consumers’ behavior has returned to rationality, thus avoiding impulsive consumption and perceptual consumption. For a person who has no experience in online shopping, considering the purchase of goods through cost performance ratio has become the driving force of online shopping family, and reached a consensus. There is a psychological consensus that the longer consumers spend searching for goods, the more firm they are about the goods and have a sense of repurchase. The more time consumers spend searching for a product, the more confident they will be in buying it, and the more likely they will buy it back. For clothes, shoes and hats, jewellery is the least, which shows that consumers tend to purchase daily necessities, which belongs to rational consumption. Consumers are more concerned about the purchase of goods and prices, quality and reality do not match. The fraudulent behavior of merchants will directly lead consumers to abandon repurchase and regret the purchase behavior. At present, the number of online shoppers is basically the same as that of males and females. At present, consumers mostly choose Taobao. Taobao can not be replaced in the short term because of its low commodity price. However, the emergence of Jingdong, Dangdang and Jumei also attracts a large number of consumers. The variety of consumers’choices increases, which also increases the probability of regret and reduces the probability of repurchase.

Sample

The data in this paper collect from Red Mai Network Public Opinion Monitoring System (also known as unotice Public Opinion System, Red Mai Public Opinion Monitoring System) which is an innovation of Red Mai Juxin (Beijing) Software Technology Co., Ltd. in applying search engine and Chinese information processing technology to enterprise public opinion information service. According to unotice Public Opinion System’s online purchasing products for singles’day consumers, influencing factors of consumers’ purchasing, information collection of consumers’satisfaction, information analysis of the determinants of consumers’ repurchase is adopted.

Finding

The time consumers search for goods will affect consumers’decision-making

The main reasons that affect consumers’regret are that consumers are cheated, there are too many products available, and they encounter products with lower prices and better quality

Consumers’efforts to search for products will affect consumers’ satisfaction and regret for products. final decision.

Online shopping habits moderate customer satisfaction and adjusted expectations, and online shopping experience can be considered as a key driver of customer satisfaction. In addition, the results confirm that customer satisfaction is an important driving force for adjusting expectations and online repurchase intention.[3]

Woodruff argues that perceived value represents customer cognition of the nature of relational exchanges with their suppliers, and satisfaction reflects customers’ overall feeling derived from the perceived value.[4] A price-quality comparison is often viewed as a critical determinant to purchase decisions and switching behavior and consequently, can create strong exit barriers.[4]

In other words, when consumers see products that are more valuable and cheaper than what they previously saw, they give up buying back, and regret arises at the moment. On the contrary, when they get a good experience in the process of shopping, the probability of buying back is high[5].

Reference

1. (Liu, He, Gao, & Xie, 2008)Liu, X., He, M., Gao, F., & Xie, P. (2008). An empirical study of online shopping customer satisfaction in China: a holistic perspective. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 36(11), 919-940.
2. (Chiu, Chang, Cheng, & Fang, 2009)Chiu, C.-M., Chang, C.-C., Cheng, H.-L., & Fang, Y.-H. (2009). Determinants of customer repurchase intention in online shopping. Online information review, 33(4), 761-784.
3. Lin, C., & Lekhawipat, W. (2014). Factors affecting online repurchase intention. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 114(4), 597-611.
4. (Clemes, Gan, & Zhang, 2014)Clemes, M. D., Gan, C., & Zhang, J. (2014). An empirical analysis of online shopping adoption in Beijing, China. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(3), 364-375.
5. (Li & Hong, 2013)Li, H., & Hong, J. (2013). Factors influencing consumers’ online repurchasing behavior: a review and research agenda. IBusiness, 5(04), 161.