DISCUSS THE TWO MAJOR CATEGORIES OF CONSUMER IN THEIR CHARACTERISTICS IN THE CONSUMER MARKET AND BUSINESS MARKET. THE MINOR NEW PURCHASE, MINOR OLD PURCHASE, MAJOR NEW PURCHASE AND MAJOR OLD PURCHASE

BARBARA AKUFFO

LEVEL 300 (TOP UP)

22/NOV 2011

ADVERTISING ASSIGNMENT

DISCUSS THE TWO MAJOR CATEGORIES OF CONSUMER IN THEIR CHARACTERISTICS IN THE CONSUMER MARKET AND BUSINESS MARKET. THE MINOR NEW PURCHASE, MINOR OLD PURCHASE, MAJOR NEW PURCHASE AND MAJOR OLD PURCHASE

A consumer is the one who buys goods or uses service for consumption. A consumer shows wiliness to obtain goods or services from a supplier with the aim of paying for. The consumer or the buyer is always right, they are very important in our business because they help the business or company to grow. Consumers should always be the number one priority of the organization because the activities of the company revolve around them. The consumer can make and unmake an organization because they offer indirect advert to people who are yet to buy goods or services. Example is users of MTN network, so it must be a priority of MTN to handle them with care.

 Consumers are divided into two main categories which are the consumer market and the business market. In the consumer market, individual and household purchase goods and services for their own consumption. They fall under a very large part of the buyers because they use the goods and services personally. Business market entails organizational entities that purchase goods and services for the use in production of other goods or services for the purpose of reselling or renting to others for profit. Before a consumer purchase a product or a service, he or she is influenced by his or her behavior which entails recognizing a problem that needs a particular product or service for consumption. They then research into the value of the product.  They also check for alternatives, assess and then make decision to consume the product.

The consumer market is characterized by certain values which influence their decision making. Thus:  cultural, social, personal and psychological.

Under the cultural values behavior is defined by social class and group wants. Here they make decision based on which class they belong to and what the group wants. Example, one may be influenced to buy a black berry phone because most banking class are using that phone.

Social deals with the influence by the family and small groups of people, these people go with a particular brand of a product. Here the family has a particular brand they have been using for so many years so they are influence by what the family is used to. They continue the family’s loyalty to a particular brand. For instance if a family has been using medisoft product  and they have learned to trust that brand there is no way their decision will change about the brand. They are guided with the principle of “the tradition goes on”.

Personal values, here consumer is influenced by personal beliefs, age groups and lifestyles.  Guiding principles set for one’ self, groups of people make decision based on what their age mates are going in for. For instance is Tigo network, most student use Tigo because that is the network their colleagues use.

Psychological entails perception they have on particular product which affects purchasing power. Example most product made from china are inferior goods

The business market is also influenced by behavior; the buying situation under business market is straight rebuy, modified rebuy and new tasks. A straight rebuy consumer often engages in straight rebuy of a product and is an attractive group for the marketing efforts of manufacturing companies.

Modified rebuy, the buyer wants to modify product specification, prices, delivery and branding. It involves an additional decision a participant want on both sides.

New task buying is an organizational buying situation in which the organization has had no previous experience with the purchase of a product of kind required. This stage is a very difficult stage for the consumer because there has not been any experience with such products.

In view of the above characteristics of consumer market and the business market, Consumers are faced with purchasing decision to make; there are four types of purchasing decisions:

 Minor new purchase - a new thing is introduce to the consumer but the consumer sees it to be very important in terms of needs, ability to buy or status. This can fall under the cultural values in the consumer market.

Minor old purchase - consumers return to purchase the same old product without the thought of other products. They consider loyalty to the brand; they trust the brand they are using. Social values under the consumer market can be related to the minor old purchase.

Major new purchase, this is where the consumer knows very little or have no experience about the product. This product is important to the consumer. Here the consumer lacks confidence in the decision, the type of decision sometime the consumer goes through is a difficult decision making process. Example is the first time a consumer is buying a car; it is going to be very difficult to choose a particular brand because the consumer will not be familiar with buying of cars.

Major old purchase is also important to the consumer but the confidence level of the consumer is high because they have previous experience in relation to the product. For instance, a consumer purchases a car the second time and the brand here is Toyota, here the consumer’s confidence level is very high because there has been a first experience.

Consumers are influenced by different behaviors so it is important to understand their purchasing decision. The company needs to know consumers trend of purchasing decision to help consumers in decision making and the company grow which is very important in business.   

Reference    

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