The Skechers Brand’s Consumer Behavior Trends

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Survey Sample Results
The Sample Survey’s Key Findings
Current Consumer Behavior Trends
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

Consumer behavior investigates the consumer’s decision-making, psychological responses to the products and services, and disposal of items. It aims to facilitate business growth by understanding market demand and targeting specific groups. Cultural beliefs, social hierarchy, and family structures form the consumers’ purchase-making mind, affecting their shopping choices. When consumer behavior consultants like me conduct surveys, they obtain valuable information to influence customers’ decisions and change the brand’s targeting.

The Survey Sample Results

The survey consists of 16 open-ended questions answered by 18 respondents targeting the customer’s behavior. The first question justifies that before buying a product, customers consider their beliefs, accounting for 44.4%. Meanwhile, 44.4% of customers compare alternatives, and 33% conduct research before shopping. Half of the respondents believe this purchase positively affects their mood, and only 11% think of the other people’s reaffirming. The two most favored answers for the reasons for purchase are the product’s ability to make life easier with 33% of votes and the necessity of a product with 27.8%. The fifth question demonstrates how customers reject the items due to the brand’s involvement in illegal activities, with half of the answers. For 38.9% of people, family and friends influence purchase decisions, but only two people are affected by celebrities. Most customers are influencers accounting for 33.3%, and they believe that their social rank determines their purchases. Therefore, 66.6% buy products belonging to a particular group, and symbols and artifacts are the primary influencers of purchase-making.

As a consumer behavior consultant, the last questions give me a chance to understand my clients’ backgrounds. Most respondents are males accounting for 72.2%, and only 22.2% are females. Half of the respondents are aged 41-55, while others are younger. 61.1% of respondents are employed, and 55.6% have an average household income between 45,000 and 120,000 dollars. According to these findings, consultants adjust the targeting strategies.

The Sample Survey’s Key Findings

Culture’s specific beliefs, ethics, and practices shape the consumer’s mind. This survey proves that abstract cultural influencers such as social norms comprising socially approved behaviors play a vital role in decision-making. Usually, consumers violate or follow social norms because they are unformal (Melnyk et al., 2022). In the tenth question, respondents identify norms as ineffective as they oppose standard behaviors in a society. However, the fifth question demonstrates that most customers refuse the product only if the brand is involved in unethical actions, proving the controversial perspective towards social norms. Therefore, customers prefer to choose brands with a good reputation that do not break social norms, but when making purchases, they mostly do not rely on social norms defining their age, gender, or ethnicity.

Beliefs and symbols are culture’s abstract components that affect the customers’ decisions the most, while artifacts are culture’s most influential physical components. Han & Kim (2018) believe that consumers’ purchase-making decisions vary across cultures, like values and beliefs. No wonder most customers prefer products that align with their values and beliefs, according to the first question, which points out the importance of cultural factors. Meanwhile, material objects from the tenth question also match the second question’s findings justifying that people tend to compare different products. They focus on the alternatives’ availability, price, and quality when making decisions. Therefore, material artifacts are the motivation behind purchasing items.

The survey’s results show people’s preferences in shopping based on social rank and hierarchy. It fits into the most widely used cultural dimensions theory provided by Hofstede, distinguishing five dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation (Steenkamp, 2019). The eighth question illustrates the power distance of the strength of social hierarchy, showing that street shoes like Skechers facilitate customers belonging to a particular social group. For example, dominant luxury brands are associated with high prestige, excellent quality, and loyalty, bringing together individuals from one social rank and of equal respect (Steenkamp, 2019). People usually purchase products according to their material artifacts, meaning that more financial opportunities provide better products. People are having more financial opportunities usually purchase better products.

Consumers are susceptible to the external influences of reference groups, who are individuals guiding appropriate values and affecting customer purchase-making. In buying Skechers, people refer to their friends and family as the membership reference group, pointing to the main functions of the family, such as emotional support and economic well-being. In extended families, consumers rely more on their families as influencers, but in nuclear families, they rely on their peers and friends (Fernandes and Panda, 2019). Moreover, customers act as influencers and deciders with the power to determine purchases in their families, which may be justified by the fact that most people taking a survey are adults aged 41-55. The ninth question highlights the importance of value-expressive reference groups based on the identification process. Respondents aim to belong to a particular reference group as they want to enhance their self-image by being associated with a brand (Zhu et al., 2019). Therefore, every consumer has motivations to buy a product, but mostly their families and peers affect the possible options.

Current Consumer Behavior Trends

Drawing suggestions from the survey findings improve business growth and focuses on important trends. Skechers should primarily focus on the convenient street shoes for the employed adults, who praise authority, social ranking, and cultural beliefs. The company should have relatively fixed product prices to maintain the current customers’ loyalty from a lower social class (Manstead, 2018). However, if the company aims to provide to the upper middle class, then it should improve the product’s quality and improve the brand’s reputation.

One of the uncovered survey findings is the effect of sensory stimulation on consumer choice. The first question shows that people rely on their sense stimulation, with 33% of respondents with five sensory stimulation and the rest of customers with only one sense being stimulated. Marketers often use images to evoke consumer time-related associations to increase sales (Biliciler et al., 2022). This successful strategy would help Skechers target the groups since creating such slogans with high-entropy images attract many new customers.

Many companies employ celebrities and social media influencers to promote their products. Primarily, young consumers rely on online communities more than they rely on family, friends, or colleagues (Al-Rawabdeh et al., 2021). However, Skechers should not rely heavily on celebrities as the survey results show that older consumers do not follow their opinions. Moreover, when a celebrity gives low rates to Skechers, they do not stop buying it as if the company was involved in illegal activities. Therefore, the company should persuade consumers to purchase a product by making it more available and preventing corruption and forced labor.

Conclusion

To conclude, the environment and cultural beliefs affect individuals’ choices when they purchase products. Some of them seek products that do not interfere with their cultural beliefs and symbols, while some look for items that help them maintain their social status or earn a new one. When companies address the beliefs and family structure and adhere to the social norms, they obtain a better reputation. Therefore, Skechers focus more on the customers’ motivations to buy the product to increase its sales.

Reference List

Al-Rawabdeh, H., Ghadir, H & Al-Abdallah, G. (2021) ‘The effects of user generated content and traditional reference groups on purchase intentions of young consumers: A comparative study on electronic products’, International Journal of Data & Network Science, 5(4), pp. 691–702. Web.

Biliciler, G, Raghunathan, R & Ward, A. 2022, ‘Consumers as naive physicists: how visual entropy cues shift temporal cocus and influence product evaluations’, Journal of Consumer Research, 48(6), pp. 1010–1031. Web.

Fernandes, S and Panda, R. (2019) ‘Influence of social reference groups on consumer buying behavior: A Review’, Journal of Management Research, 19(2), pp. 131–142. Web.

Han, M. and Kim, Y. (2018) ‘How culture and friends affect acceptance of social media commerce and purchase intentions: a comparative study of consumers in the U.S. and China’, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 30(5), pp. 326–335. Web.

Manstead, A. (2018) ‘The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thoughts, feelings, and behavior’, Social Psychology, 57(2), pp. 267-291. Web.

Melnyk, V., Carrillat, F. & Melnyk, V. (2022) ‘The influence of social norms on consumer behavior: a meta-analysis’, Journal of Marketing, 86(3), pp. 98–120. Web.

Steenkamp, J. (2019) ‘Global versus local consumer culture: theory, measurement, and future research directions’, Journal of International Marketing, 27(1), pp. 1–19. Web.

Zhu, X, Teng, L, Foti, L & Yuan, Y. (2019) ‘Using self-congruence theory to explain the interaction effects of brand type and celebrity type on consumer attitude formation’, Journal of Business Research, 103(2), pp. 301–309. Web.

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