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Consumer Behaviour

Assignment Question
In this assignment, the students are required to choose a product and explain the factors
which control the consumer purchasing behavior towards that product. First, the students
should give a brief introduction to the chosen product in terms of the market sales,
brands, and popularity. Next, the students may choose factors such as value for money,
quality, brand feeling, social influence, and consumer ethnocentrism.

Introduction
Shampoo is personal hygiene product that is very essential in our daily needs. It feeds
consumers’ physiological needs as it cleans the hair and provides other additional
benefits such as conditioning, reducing dandruff, moisturizing, nourishing and etc. it is a
multi-million ringgit industry that contributes largely in the annual GNP (Gross National
Product) and GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
There are countless brands in the market and only the famous ones are those that
we usually hear of. What about local brands? Usually, consumers purchase by
recognizing the brand and sometimes ignore the fact about quality and price. Imported
shampoos dominate the market and the aim of the research is to research on what are the
factors that influences consumers’ behavior and on a smaller scale, consumers’
purchasing pattern and behavior.
Local shampoo brands includes Shurah, Fair & Lovely, TLC (Tender, Loving,
Care) and so forth. Examples of imported shampoos such as Schwarzkopf, Redken,
Pantene, Tracia, L’ Oreal are those we usually hear of because of its intensive advertising
and popular brand name. These imported shampoos have terrorized the local market
scene and not many consumers can actually differentiate between local and imported
ones.
Shampoo is an industry that contributes annual income in millions of ringgit.
Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the reason consumers prefer certain types or brands
of shampoo compared to others. The problem that arises is that consumers nowadays just
simply cannot differentiate between imported shampoo brands and local brands. For
those who are able to identify the difference, these consumers are using it based on its
brand-name and thus do not put other important criteria into consideration.
There are also consumers who purchase based on its value for money, quality,
peer pressure and so forth. The intention to purchase shampoo is thus influenced by all
these factors and it is important for researchers to discover the real or most influential
factor that control consumer purchasing behavior.
Factors which control the consumer purchasing behaviour

According to the information provided by Wikipedia.com, consumer behaviour referred


to as the study of when, why, how, where and what people do or do not buy products.
[1]
It blends elements from psychology, sociology,social, anthropologyand economics. It
attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in
groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and
behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess
influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and
society in general.

Customer behaviour study is based on consumer buying behaviour, with the customer
playing the three distinct roles of user, payer and buyer. Relationship marketing is an
influential asset for customer behaviour analysis as it has a keen interest in the re-
discovery of the true meaning of marketing through the re-affirmation of the
importance of the customer or buyer. A greater importance is also placed on consumer
retention, customer relationship management, personalisation, customisation and one-
to-one marketing. Social functions can be categorized into social choice and welfare
functions.

Each method for vote counting is assumed as a social function but if Arrow’s
possibility theorem is used for a social function, social welfare function is achieved.
Some specifications of the social functions are decisiveness, neutrality, anonymity,
monotonocity, unanimity, homogeneity and weak and strong Pareto optimality. No
social choice function meets these requirements in an ordinal scale simultaneously.
The most important characteristic of a social function is identification of the
interactive effect of alternatives and creating a logical relation with the ranks.
Marketing provides services in order to satisfy customers. With that in mind, the
productive system is considered from its beginning at the production level, to the end of
the cycle, the consumer (Kioumarsi et al., 2009).
Most of worldwide consumer are able to contact with product and service from all
over the world in large numbers. Through widespread communication, consumers get
more knowledge of products and are more familiar with the product. Information which
is easily obtainable enables consumers to examine and know local product closer and
clearer. Information and consumer perceptions on one country and the particular product
pay impact on consumer behaviors and it become main concern in marketing person’s
supply ( John.E.Spillan, 2007; Orsay Kucikemiroglu, 2007; Talha Harcar, 2007 ). In
research study for consumer perceptions in car buying local produced shampoos and
imported shampoos, COB's theory (Country-of-Origin of Brand) used. Apart from that,
theory of 'Consumer Ethnocentrism' also used to observe buying decision tendency in
plenty consumer. It also used to identify factors which influence consumer buying onto
some particular product.

Quality
The quality is the perception of the customer to meet his or her expectations towards the
performance of the product. Quality is a perceptual, conditional and somewhat subjective
attribute. According to Peter Drucker, quality in a product or service is not what the
supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. W.Edwards
Deming defines quality as concentrating on “the efficient production of the quality that
the market expects and improvement of quality is accomplished by better management of
design, engineering, testing and by improvement of processes.
A good customer experience comes from the high quality of the product of
service. When the customer finds that the shampoo is high quality because their hair
grows healthier and stronger. The quality determines the good customer experience. It
will help to shape the consumer behavior.

Theory COB (Country-of-Origin Of Brand)


When majority has national difference in their view for their product’s quality,
'Country of Origin' (CO) show influence for consumer choice. Effect-of ‘Country of
Origin” by now moderate by features user group. It have been exposing that the impact
from the world mentality product improvement has been enhanced for the foreign country
product and this incident disparage local product.
However, impact accepted from nationalism for product improvement has been
enhanced for local produce product and it has been understated foreign produced product
(Mohammed Y A Rawwas, 1996; K N Rajendran, 1996; Gerhard A Wuehrer, 1996).
CO's Impact (country of origin), also known as “ locally-made” concept and has been
defined by widespread resultant that positive or negative impact whether product
produced by local production will influence by decision-making process consumer
(Elliott And Cameron, 1994). Through consumer decision making, CO (country of
origin) has been defined as extrinsic who act as risk mitigation or quality sign consumer
for counters. (Cordell, 1992). Although there were research about some propound
question on the importance of OC (country of origin) to consumer decision making
(Elliott And Cameron, 1994; Hugstad And Durr, 1986; Mitchell And Greatorex, 1990;
Schooler And Wildt, 1968), lately, plenty researcher has shown that CO (country of
origin) have the titan effect on purchasing behavior for product and tendency of purchase
stated by the product. It also has shown a more powerful impact for brand, price or
quality of a stated product (Ahmed and d'Astous, 1996; Lantz And Loeb, 1996;
Okechuku, 1994). Market difference between the local shampoo and the imported
shampoo is dissimilar by factors as culture, history and geography.
Apart from that, difference in the way consumer accept or consider product and
brand also will influence consumer decision making in their purchasing behavior. This
theory comply show that stereotype country wherein consumer perceptions for quality
and buying value is different in each country. This matter influence consumer thinking
and action to more than inclined make choices deep buying decision product. This
tendency afford lead consumer behaviour, but consumer behaviour is not the same where
it can become anything specific. Willing Sharma et al. (1995) cultural similarity among
two different countries is a factor which can influence tendency 'consumer ethnocentric'
impact on consumer behavior towards product produced by foreign country. Hence, there
is higher desire level to purchase local produce product.

Theory 'Consumer Ethnocentrism'

Lately, there is research which have connected CO (country of origin) impact to


the level of 'consumer ethnocentrism'. 'Consumer Ethnocentrism' focuses on the
responsibility and moral of purchasing locally produce product and consumer attitude
towards product and the level of loyalty of consumer towards products generated by their
own country (Shimp And Sharma, 1987).
Measurement for 'consumer ethnocentrism' produced with planning the
CETSCALE (Consumer Ethnocentric Tendencies Scale) which is produced by Shimp
and Sharma (1987). CETSCALE contains seventeen items where it measure consumer
interest to acted consistently on goods and product produced locally and product
imported from foreign country. Greater 'consumer ethnocentric' to notional product,
consumer will likely to have bad behavior towards imported products. This negative
relationship with reference and purchases of goods tendency by imported product has
been found in France's consumer model nation and Japanese national, Soviet Armenia's
country and also Korean national. Lantz And Loeb (1996) have found that there is a lot of
consumers 'ethnocentric' in comparison have low level of 'consumer ethnocentrism'
individually where behavior design are more favorable for product from other country
which their culture are almost identical.
Social Influence
According to Maslow Hierachy of Needs, it explains what motivated individuals
in life to achieve. He set out his answer in a form of a hierarchy. He suggests individuals
aim to meet basic psychological needs of hunger and thirst. When this has been met they
then move up to the next stage of the hierarchy, safety needs, where the priority lay with
job security and the knowing that an income will be available to them regularly. Social
needs come in the next level of the hierarchy, the need to belong or be loved is a natural
human desire and people do strive for this belonging. Esteem need is the need for status
and recognition within society, status sometimes drives people, the need to have a good
job title and be recognised or the need to wear branded clothes as a symbol of status.
So, the people will seek for social recognition. They will be influenced by the social
because they want the people to recognize and agree with them. We are living in a
interconnected world. We exert influence to each other. For an example, the family
members can strongly influence buyer behaviour. The family is the most important
consumer buying organization society and it has been researched extensively. The
marketers are interested in the roles, and influence of the husband, wife and children on
the purchase of different products and services.

Conclusion
Shampoo is the personal hygienic product and has a large market. So, it is important to
determine which factors play the pivotal role to influence the consumer purchasing
behaviour. In this assignment, the first factor is quality, country of origin-brand, theory of
consumer ethnocentrism, and the social influence. These variables form a combination to
produce an impact as to manifest our different behaviour of a consumer.

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